When Signing a Contract, Always Read the Fine Print
by gentlemankitsune
Summary: Minato screws up when he signs a contract dictating that Naruto would be the protagonist of a videogame being developed by TOBI inc. This has unknown consequences at the time, but 13 years later it manifests in a way that leaves Naruto trapped in a world full of videogame UI, Sintax, and shit ton of confusion. Will Naruto be able to survive, or will it be GAME OVER?
1. a start

Chapter 1

It was a book.

The book that started it all.

Naruto was resting in bed at the house of Tsunami. He had just helped to liberate the country of wave and was exhausted not only physically, but also emotionally from the efforts to do so. Apparently Sasuke was okay, just exhausted and recovering from the false state of death that had been put on him. Sakura was watching over him and trying her best to nurse him back to health. And Kakashi was resting up as well, no doubt reading his porn.

Naruto had a problem.

He was bored.

Very bored.

With nothing to alleviate the boredom.

Naruto got up and checked his ninja bag for anything that might be of worth. Maybe he could practice kunai balancing, or something else that was just so utterly mind numbing that it would waste his time in large amounts. Anything was better than staring at the ceiling with nothing to do

Naruto saw something that caught his eye in his ninja bag. Reaching in and grabbing it, Naruto pulled out a book. He didn't carry books around with him, so finding the book immediately put him on guard.

It couldn't have been more than a hundred pages long, making it the size of a small novel. The book didn't have a cover, a title, a blurb, or anything else that might denote whatever is was for.

'Is this Kakashi's porn?' Naruto thought to himself. The porn that he carried around with him usually had at least a cover page.

Realizing that it couldn't hurt to check what the book was, Naruto cracked it open to the front page. It read thusly:

_Welcome to Naruto: the game._

_By opening this book, you are accepting the terms and conditions of the contract stating that we have free reign over your personal and subjective reality to make it into the way that the contract dictates._

_This change will be happening in 3…2…1…_

Then Naruto's world turned black.

00000000

Naruto blearily opened his eyes to the world. It was dark. He was lying on the ground in no small amount of discomfort and he had a splitting headache. He looked around for any detail that would seem out of ordinary that might give credence to why he was on the ground. Naruto spotted the book that he had grabbed out of his ninja pouch.

Picking it up, he found out that the front cover now read_ Naruto: the gaming handbook_. 'What the hell is this thing?' Naruto thought to himself.

On one hand, Naruto could open it up and find out. On the other hand, something worse than him blacking out could happen.

His curiosity won the debate. Cracking it open once more, new words came out on the front page.

_Welcome to Naruto: the gaming handbook._

_Would you like a tour?_

_[Yes] [No]_

"Erm… yes?" Naruto tried saying to it.

New words popped up under the confirmations

_Welcome to Naruto: the gaming handbook._

_Would you like a tour?_

_[Yes] [No]_

_*tap an option*_

Naruto pushed his finger down on _[Yes] _and new words popped up on the page.

_Welcome to Naruto: the gaming handbook._

_*All hints given by the tour guide (me) will be given in between asterisks*_

_*Please turn the page onto the base stats section.*_

Naruto complied and was visually assaulted by walls of text and statistics. 'Ugh. Reading.'

_*This is the 'base stats' section of the book. On it contains all of the things that make you, you.*_

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP: 55/4000 level-ups available._

_*This shows your experience point score. You gain experience points only by fighting other strong individuals in open combat. This could be classified as fighting to the death, or simply sparring. Level-ups can only be achieved when you reach the current level cap of your experience level. Level-ups include points to affect your base stats as well as points to affect your attribute stats (which will be explained later)*_

_Chakra: 50_

_*This is the total amount of chakra available to you*_

_Chakra Control: 5_

_*This affects the expenditure of chakra for various tasks.*_

_Wisdom: 40_

_*Wisdom is all about how one uses the intelligence that one has for battle applications.*_

_Intelligence: 2_

_*Total level of factual knowledge*_

_Charisma: 50_

_*This stat represents how much people like you and are willing to listen to what you have to say. Usually only has an impact on strangers who don't have any pre-made thoughts and assumptions about your character*_

_Flexibility: 10_

_*The nimbleness and agility of a person*_

_Speed: 12_

_*How fast one moves, thinks, or reacts*_

_Strength: 10_

_*How much weight one is capable of being under*_

_Endurance: 40_

_*How long you can operate in battle scenarios*_

_*You are incapable of changing base stats by any other method than putting points into the areas given by level ups. This has its ups and downs, as you are incapable of working out for a strength stat increase, but your muscles will also never atrophy.*_

_*All of these stats are subjective to the average shinobi. i.e. 0's across the board are average for people who have just started the academy. Genin average in the 20's. Chunin average in the 40's. Jonin average in the 60's. ANBU are all over the place, but for simplicity, let's just say that they average in the 80's. Kage level shinobi average in the 100's*_

_*Please turn the page to the attributes section*_

'This has to be some kind of joke.' Naruto thought to himself. Nevertheless, he did what the tour guide told him to do.

_*This is the attributes section of the book. On it contains all the things that you are capable of doing*_

_*There are 7 expandable sections to the attributes section. Tap to enhance each one and learn more about them*_

_Ninjutsu_

_Genjutsu_

_Taijutsu_

_Senjutsu_

_Kenjutsu_

_Jinchuuriki jutsu_

_Miscellaneous_

Naruto tapped on ninjutsu first, which expanded into more sections.

_Learning rate 50/200_

_*As you can see, there is a limit to how well you can perform in any given area. This is likened to how well one sees visually. People can only reach 20/20 vision, while you can only reach 200/200 Learning rate affinity (It's a play on words… numbers… it's clever)*_

_Elemental affinities [tap to expand] _

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto tapped on the affinities section.

_Wind 0/200 x2_

_*You have a wind affinity, which means that you will learn how to use wind elemental manipulation and wind jutsus twice as fast, and it will cost half attribute points to increment*_

_Fire 0/200 x.5_

_*Because you have a wind affinity, you will learn fire based elemental manipulation and jutsu's .5 times as fast, and it will cost double attribute points to increment_

_Earth 0/200_

_Water 0/200_

_Lightning 0/200_

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto went back to tap on the genjutsu option

_Learning rate 0/200_

_Detection 0/200_

_*affects how well you can detect illusions*_

_Dispel 0/200_

_*affects how well you can dispel illusions*_

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto went to the taijutsu option

_Learning rate 20/200_

_Pain tolerance 25/200_

_*affects much pain you can endure before blacking out*_

_Form 5/200_

_*affects your elegance in hand to hand combat*_

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto went to the Senjutsu option, which he had never heard of

_Pre-requisite of Senjutsu training: talk to a person who is capable of Senjutsu and convince them to teach you._

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto sweatdropped 'Well never mind then' he thought to himself, while going to the kenjutsu option

_Learning rate 0/200_

_Form 0/200_

_Versatility 0/1000_

_*Versatility affects how well you fight with a variety of different weapons. From sais, to katanas, to chakrams*_

_[tap here to go back]_

Jinchuuriki jutsu made Naruto's eyebrows go up in surprise. 'There are jutsu's that I can use with Fuzzball's chakra? Cool.'

_Control 2/1000_

_*Control affects how much of Kyuubi's chakra you can take at once and still remain emotionally stable*_

_Shape manipulation 0/1000_

_*affects how well you can manipulate and control the chakra to your whim, allowing you to access different levels and forms of your traditional bijuu cloak*_

_[tap here to go back]_

When Naruto tapped the miscellaneous option, it expanded across pages and pages of the book. On a cursory glance, Naruto saw that they all were out of 50 points and were all somewhat useless to him. Cooking, cleaning, singing, giving massages, forging, trap laying, seduction, poison identification and synthesizing.

Okay so maybe they all weren't so useless, but there were so many of them that Naruto would have a tough time sorting out the useful things to learn and the useless things to learn.

_*the affinity section is comprised of skills that can be increased out of training yourself, but can also be supplemented by the points that you receive from leveling up.*_

The last part of the last page of the affinity section read _*please turn the page to the merit section*_

Naruto did so and was met with a couple of pages that were full of grayed out boxes that had different words written down on them. Dead bone pulse, strength of a thousand, animal attributes, tongue modification, fire master, lightning rod, ice release.

'Wait, ice release? That's the thing that Haku had.' Naruto tapped the grayed out box that had Haku's kekai genkai on it.

_Merit: ice release_

_The legendary elemental kekai genkai of the Yuki clan._

_Pre-requisites: meet and battle a member of the Yuki clan. Water elemental manipulation 100/200. Wind elemental manipulation 100/200._

_Unlocks ice elemental manipulation and jutsus to learn._

_[tap here to go back]_

Naruto sighed 'This UI is so clunky'

At the merit screen, there was new text

_*As I'm sure that you've found out, you can unlock different unique jutsus, body modification techniques, or kekai genkai; but you'll need to meet the pre-requisites first. These are unlocked by using 'merit points', of which, one is awarded for every two level ups*_

_*Please flip to the 'people' section*_

The people section consisted of an index of people that he met sorted out in alphabetical order as well as all the information that he knew of them so far.

_*Please flip to the achievement section*_

'This is so fucking weird' Naruto thought to himself.

_*The achievement section contains all the things that you've done that are worthy of mention. Most of them have some sort of reward associated with them.*_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE ACADEMY +5 intelligence_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: BECAME A GENIN (FOR REAL) +1 to all base stats._

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: DEFEATED HAKU OF THE ICE +10 wind manipulation, +10 water manipulation_

_*this concludes the tour of Naruto: the game handbook. Please note that there will be other things within this world that will only make sense to you. But you have to find them for yourself. Have a good day. Or a good night in your case*_

'...Okay. Time to review the information so far.' Naruto thought out to himself. 'I've found some weird ass book that knocked me out when I first opened it up, then I opened it up again and it tells me all this weird stuff about me being in a game or some shit… this is either a really cruel and inventive prank, or I'm tripping out'

Naruto flipped the book back to beginning to find that his stats had been changed.

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP: 55/4000 level-ups available._

_Chakra: 51_

_Chakra Control: 6_

_Wisdom: 41_

_Intelligence: 8_

_Charisma: 51_

_Flexibility: 11_

_Speed: 13_

_Strength: 11_

_Endurance: 41_

Naruto tapped on the level up option

_You've leveled up (3 times). You are now level 4. +15 base stat modifiers +50 affinity stat modifiers +2 merit points._

There were now pluses and minuses beside the base stat points. Naruto shrugged, if he had already spent this much time investing in the book, he would play along for a while longer.

He dumped all 15 of the base modifiers into his chakra control, as he had always been told that he needed to work on that because of his large chakra size. There was a prompt for confirmation, which he pressed.

"Urk" there was a burning sensation in Naruto's gut. It felt as though his chakra system was resorting itself out in the most painful way possible. The pain was gone as soon as it came and left Naruto gasping for breath.

"What the fuck is this thing?" Naruto said in between gasps for breath as he held onto the strange book. 'Wait… if this thing is real…'

Naruto put his hands together in cross formation and whispered out **"shadow clone." **There was soon a perfect replica of Naruto right next to the original, but that wasn't the cool part. What _was _the cool part was how it felt to spawn the clone. It was easier, vastly so. Not that it wasn't easy to begin with, but it was just the way that the chakra flowed inside of Naruto's body to create the construct of chakra that had him gaping at the book.

'This thing is real' he thought out in wonder.

Naruto reopened up the book and went to affinity section. He had 50 points and a lot of options to choose from. The blonde knew that his taijutsu sucked, but he didn't want to dump all the points into it just like he did with chakra control. So he decided to distribute it evenly across the genjutsu skill traits and the taijutsu skill traits. Leaving him with:

_Genjutsu:_

_Learning rate 9/200_

_Detection 9/200_

_Dispel 8/200_

_Taijutsu:_

_Learning rate 28/200_

_Pain tolerance 33/200_

_Form 13/200_

He pressed confirm, but didn't feel like anything of merit happened. There was no sudden pain in his gut, but that could easily be chalked up to him changing his affinity stats as opposed to his base stats.

He also had some merit points to do things with. Grinning with glee, he opened up the merit section to see what had been unlocked for him.

Not much, as it would seem. There were three boxes that had lost their dull gray color in favor of a light beige color. They read: _sharingan (stage 1), affability, and medical ninjutsu._

Naruto wanted to immediately shove a merit point and get the sharingan, but held off at the mention of stage 1. Looking deeper into it, Naruto discovered that the sharingan had 5 stages in total. Stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, mangenkyou, and eternal mangenkyou. All of these had incredible powers associated with them, but they also had steeper and steeper requirements with each iteration. The eternal mangenkyou required Naruto to kill someone with the normal mangenkyou sharingan eyes, have 80 in almost all the base stats, and invest 10 merit points towards it. Naruto wasn't sure whether or not the investment in the first stages would be worth the investment in the latter stages, so he checked out the other merit points that were available to him.

_Affability:_

_You are a nice and honest guy, who has a quality that makes people gravitate towards you._

_Unlocks: 'What people think of you' in the people section_

_Pre-requisites: have 50 charisma._

_Cost: 1 merit point._

That was a really good thing to have. He could find out how people think about him and change their perspectives. He tentatively put a point towards that. Naruto rationalized it as the fact that he could always choose the sharingan at a later date.

_Medical ninjutsu:_

_You have enough chakra control that you can start the enrollment into the medical nin field._

_Unlocks: 'medical ninjutsu' in the ninjutsu section._

_Pre-requisites: have 20 chakra control_

_Cost: 1 merit point._

Naruto flashed back to the bridge. Sasuke was dying of various puncture wounds and Naruto couldn't do anything to help him. He knew that Sasuke was okay and just in a catatonic state after the battle, but he didn't want to feel that helpless ever again, and thusly put a point in towards it.

All the spendable points were gone. So Naruto headed over to the people section to find out how his teammates feel about him

_Kakashi:_

_What (Kakashi) thinks of me: annoying_

_Sakura:_

_What (Sakura) thinks of me: annoying_

_Sasuke:_

_What (Sasuke) thinks of me: annoying, slightly grudging respect_

Naruto's heart sank a bit at how Sakura thought of him.

'Wait a minute… this doesn't help me at all!' Naruto shouted out mentally. '*mental sigh* I should have gone with the sharingan.'

From the window in Naruto's room, he could tell that it was still dark out. His eyelids felt heavy. He had been having a strange night.

'It's probably a good idea to get some sleep'

Naruto put the book on the nightstand and hit the bed with a thud.

Slept took him almost instantly

**AN/ how's it going?**

**I've decided on going with a Naruto the videogame storyline for my new project.**

**I don't have any pairings on mind at the moment. Write a review and tell me who you think it should be. I might do a harem, might not. Still a bit too early to tell.**

**As always, have a gentlemanly day.**


	2. a better teacher

Together chapter 2

"Hey Kakashi?"

"Yes?"

"You're a sucky teacher."

Team 7 was walking on a road that towards Konoha. Sasuke had to take it slow because of his injuries, Sakura was checking up on him very often, Kakashi was absentmindedly reading his porn, and Naruto had his head stuck in the Naruto Guidebook. More specifically, its People section.

_Kakashi:_

_What (Kakashi) thinks of you: annoying_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

_Merits: stolen sharingan, dog summoning contract_

_Teaching merit: .2x ninjutsu .2x genjutsu .2x taijutsu .1x kenjutsu x10 dogkeeping_

_*the teaching merit signifies how fast and well a person is capable of teaching you. If nothing is mentioned in it, you can assume that they have a 1x ability to teach you. For example: if you are taught by a person of 1x ninjutsu or lower, you would probably be better off just teaching that aspect to yourself. Teaching merit does not signify personal strength, merely how well someone teaches you those concepts.*_

_*also keep in mind that a person can only teach as much as they know.*_

"Oh? Well you're a sucky student." Kakashi said without looking away from his porn.

Naruto wanted to show off his relatively high ninjutsu learning rate to prove the lazy teacher otherwise, but decided it would be for the best if people didn't know that his life had suddenly been turned into a videogame.

Naruto stewed in silence for a while before asking "Do you know anyone that can teach medical ninjutsu?"

This comment did manage to draw Kakashi's eyes away from the book and to his blond student. "I'm sure that you could to talk to someone at the hospital if you wanted to become a medic nin. But why the sudden interest? You don't seem like the type to go into medicine and your chakra control is still shot to hell."

"It is not. I've gotten better with it." Naruto said indignantly.

Kakashi walked over to a tree and plucked a small leaf from a low hanging branch. Tossing it to the blonde protagonist, Kakashi said "Once you can float that leaf on your hand using only your chakra, I'll talk to a friend of mine to get you enrolled in medic training."

Kakashi pulled his attention back to his porn and started walking on the road again. "You know Sakura, you could receive benefits from medic training as well with your chakra control."

"Really sensei?" she asked excitedly.

"I don't see why you shouldn't be able-"

"Done." Naruto said, interrupting their conversation.

"Huh?" Kakashi asked. Looking back at the blonde, his single eye went wide in surprise. Naruto was indeed floating the leaf on his hand, rather effortlessly as well.

"Naruto…"

"You'll talk to your friend, right?" Naruto asked excitedly.

"Err… sure. But more importantly, how are you able to do that?"

"What?"

"The… the leaf exercise. I haven't taught you that yet."

"That's 'cuz you're a sucky teacher."

"Naruto…" Kakashi said seriously.

"I uhhh… I heard it from a friend and I've been practicing it while you guys were resting." Naruto quickly said, trying to bullshit his teacher.

Kakashi knew that his student was hiding something from him, but he decided that a chakra control exercise was of no consequence and did not merit further investigation. "Hmmm… okay, I'll talk to that friend of mine."

"YATTA!" Naruto cried, jumping up in the air with glee. Once he came back down, the blonde once again buried his head in his guidebook.

Sasuke had picked up a leaf as well and was trying to emulate what his teammate had done, but it was hard. To balance a leaf on his hand meant having to create a constant stream of chakra that held the leaf in place on all sides. He couldn't use too much chakra on any one side, otherwise it would just fall off. He also couldn't use too much chakra in general, otherwise it would crumple under the pressure.

"Oi dobe." Sasuke said to the blonde after trying the exercise for a while.

"Yeah?" Naruto asked without lifting his head from the guidebook.

"How'd you do that?"

"What?"

"The leaf exercise!"

"You just hold in place with your chakra." Naruto said simply.

"I know that. But how did you do it?"

"I… held it in place with chakra?" Naruto said with a confused lilt.

Sasuke sighed. "What I mean is, do you have any hints for completing the exercise."

"You just create like… a circle of chakra around it, then anchor it to your hand."

Sasuke did what Naruto said to do, but was met with the same success as his previous attempts. "Dobe. I'm having trouble keeping the chakra stream consistent. How did you get around that particular problem?" Sasuke said slowly with a pissed off expression on his face.

"I don't… I don't know what to tell you. Practice?"

Sasuke looked to Sakura, who was trying the same exercise and was getting it far better than he was. He made his way over to her the help that he wasn't getting from his other teammate.

Naruto was leafing through the guidebook, checking up on the miscellaneous section for anything of value when he found a new part of the book that wasn't shown in the tour.

_Abilities/status effects:_

_Shadow clone [tap to enhance]_

_Transformation_

_Sexy jutsu_

_Substitution jutsu_

Curious, Naruto tapped on the shadow clone to see what it had in it.

_Shadow clone:_

_The ability to split ones chakra evenly up between one or more constructs._

_Uses: combat support, ?, ?._

This confused Naruto 'Why is the shadow clone the only one that has more detail to it? And what other uses does it have?'

"Hey Kakashi?"

Kakashi sighed. Why was his student so talkative all of the sudden. "Yes?"

"What can the shadow clone technique do?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Like… what are its uses?"

Kakashi close his book and looked Naruto in the eye. "What's brought this on?"

"Curiosity."

"You suddenly became curious about the inner workings and applications of your jutsu?"

"Yep." Naruto said with a smile.

Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose in agitation. "Okay, I'll tell you."

"So you _do_ know."

"Mmhmm."

"Why haven't you told me this before?"

"Just… shut up and listen."

Naruto nodded obediently.

"As you know, the shadow clone jutsu splits up your chakra in between your copies and you get it back when it dispels. This allows for all the clone's memories to be given back to you when its chakra is disrupted. You can use this to train in a hard concept much faster, or to spy on enemies. The reason I haven't told you about this function yet is because training in that method can be extremely dangerous if you take too much information at once. I don't trust you enough to train responsibly."

"So I can train in medical jutsu and ninjutsu at the same time?"

"Whatever floats your boat."

"Awesome. I am going to completely abuse this." Naruto said with a cackling laugh.

Kakashi sweatdropped at his student's antics. "Just remember to not go overboard and kill yourself. It'd be a bad mark as a teacher to have a student to kill himself training."

"Do you honestly care about what other people think of you?"

"Hmm. Good point." Kakashi went back to reading his porn.

"Hey Kakashi?"

'Why can't I just read in peace?' Kakashi thought to himself

"Yes?"

"Do you know anyone else who could help me train?"

"If it's an apprenticeship that you're looking for, they can be rather hard to obtain. But if you just need training in a singular subject, I think I could point you in the right direction."

"Okay then… how about ninjutsu?"

"Asuma Sarutobi specializes in elemental ninjutsu. Particularly wind and fire. But you'll have to convince him to train you in his free time because he has a team to train as well."

"Genjutsu?"

"Kurenai Yuhi. Same problem as Asuma."

"Taijutsu?"

"Mighto Gai. Same problem as Asuma."

"Senjutsu?"

"What's Senjutsu?"

"Never mind. Kenjutsu?"

"Hayate Gekko or his fiancé Yugao Uzuki."

"That's good to know. Uhh…"

"Yes?"

"Anyone who knows stuff like poisons, and lying, and trap setting?" Naruto said unsurely.

"…I suppose you could ask Anko Mitarashi for those things. She's a member of torture and interrogation, so she's pretty good with sneaky stuff like that. But she's kind of unhinged."

"That's fine. I'll just use shadow clones." Naruto said with a smile. "Where can I find them?"

"Just go to the shinobi log at mission assignment. They'll point you to their living residences."

"Awesome!"

00000000

Several slow, monotonous days of walking later.

Naruto ran into a problem with his teaching situation.

Namely, no one wanted to.

Asuma, Kurenai, Gai, Hayate and Uzuki all professed that their schedules were far too busy to take on another student. Well, Gai had suggested that Naruto could work out with them once his training with Lee, Tenten, and Neji had ended. But Naruto didn't get any benefits from working out anymore, so he graciously refused the enigmatic man's offer.

Naruto couldn't even find Anko. On the door to her apartment read 'If you need me. I'm probably at the forest of death.'

Where the fuck is the forest of death?

Which led to his current situation. Being at home and browsing through the merit section of the guidebook, waiting for the medic nin that Kakashi knew to take him to the hospital to start his training.

Naruto put the book down. Browsing through the merit section was cool, but he didn't think that he'd remember the requirements for each individual one.

Naruto took a deep breath and exhaled very slowly and very loudly.

He was bored again.

Naruto eyed his ninja pouch with a smirk on his face. 'I wonder if there's anything in there.' It was worth a try. The last time he checked his ninja pouch when he was bored had changed his viewpoint on life.

Naruto reached inside and felt something cylindrical in nature. 'No way.'

He grasped the object and pulled out a scroll. Well, it wasn't really a scroll. More like a poster that was wrapped around a short wooden pole.

Unfurling it, it read:

_Homeowner's guidebook _

_Total money: $324_

_Cleanliness: 44/100_

_Renovation cost: $15,000_

_New apartment? [browse housing]_

Under that was a detailed diagram of Naruto's floor plan with boxes in the middle of each room. Slightly perturbed by the stats, Naruto tapped on one of the boxes to find out what it would do.

A list of new rooms came up, each with a description and cost to replace the old one.

_Small greenhouse:_

_You will be able to grow your own poisonous or medical plants to help you with your job as a shinobi._

_Pre-requisite: gardening 25/50_

_Cost: $3000_

_Small Dojo:_

_You will be able to fight, spar, and practice with other people in a safe, personal environment_

_Pre-requisite: Taijutsu form 40/200_

_Cost: $10,000_

_Torture and interrogation room:_

_You will be able to 'extract information' in a personal, friendly environment_

_Pre-requisite: T&I 20/50_

_Cost: 2,000_

_Master bedroom:_

_Contains a large bed, two dressers, and a flat screen TV_

_Pre-requisite: nothing_

_Cost: 15,000_

_Love room:_

_Contains anything and everything that you and your partner might want to experiment with in the bedroom._

_Pre-requisite: have another permanent resident of whom you are romantically involved with._

_Cost: $30,000_

_Grand bathroom:_

_Two sinks, two full sized mirrors, a luxurious clawfoot bath, a fully stocked shower, and a beautiful floor plan_

_Pre-requisite: nothing_

_Cost: $60,000_

_*There will be more room options the larger house or apartment that you own. Also keep in mind that unless you expand, you will not be able to get every room here*_

'Cleanliness is 44 out of 100?' Naruto looked around. The apartment certainly could use a spring cleaning day. Or two.

Our blonde protagonist spawned 3 clones and told them to clean the place up while he studied the Homeowners guidebook some more. To start with, he tapped on the _[browse housing]_ button.

Another list popped up, but this time of various houses and apartments throughout the city of Konohagakure that were available for purchase. There was even an option to buy the apartments that were next to his in order to extend it somewhat.

'Well this is cool, but I don't have the money to do anything with it.' Naruto exited the list and was pleased to find that the cleanliness was already at 51/100.

"Keep up the good work guys." There were various grunts of affirmation throughout the living quarters.

After Naruto had studied the poster some more, his doorbell rang out. Quickly rolling the poster back up and tossing it onto the ground, he ran to open the door to a shinobi that was dressed in pure white medic smocks.

"You're Naruto Uzumaki?"

"Yup. You're the guy that Kakashi-sensei knows?"

The man nodded.

"Cool." Naruto spawned another clone and told it "Follow this guy. He'll train you to be a medic."

"I know." It answered. "I'm you."

"A shadow clone?" the man asked.

"That's okay right?"

The medic pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, it's fine. You wouldn't be the first person to do it." he began walking away from the door with the clone in tow.

"Oh wait!" Naruto called after him

He turned around and raised an eyebrow.

"Do you know where the forest of death is?"

"Err… yeah. It's training ground 44 in Training block D. you can't miss it. It looks like… well, a forest of death."

"Cool. Thanks man." Naruto promptly closed the door and went to gather some ninja supplies. Hopefully, this Anko chick wouldn't turn him away immediately.

00000000

The forest of death.

Naruto was walking around the fenced in training ground 44 hoping that Anko would be somewhere around the edge of it as opposed to inside of it.

Because there was no way he was venturing into that creepy ass place.

Naruto felt a projectile whistle past his ear. Whirling around to face the perpetrator, he found himself in front of a woman with purple hair wearing a large trench coat over a tightly woven mesh body suit and a brown miniskirt.

She bent over to smirk at him. "You lost kid?"

Quickly gaining his composure, he said "That depends, are you Anko Mitarashi?"

She stood up and started pacing around with an arrogant demeanor. "Has my fame exceeded me that much? Yes kid, I'm the wonderful and awesome Anko Mitarashi. What can I do you for?"

"Will you teach me?" Naruto asked confidently.

She deadpanned. "What?"

"Will you teach me?" Naruto repeated.

"Err… well, what do you want to be taught?" She lost her arrogant demeanor in favor of a befuddled one.

"Well… like, you know. Poisons, lying, trap detection, trap laying… stuff that you know."

"What, like an apprenticeship?"

"Sure."

"Sorry kid, I don't do apprenticeships." She closed her eyes and made to walk away from him.

"Eh?! Wait. Please. Nobody else will teach me." Naruto cried out after her.

She turned around and rose an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I have the laziest jonin instructor ever. I'm getting combat medic training, but I really need someone to instruct me on the essentials." He pleaded at her.

"A lazy instructor huh? You get Asuma or something?"

"Kakashi."

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. "Kakashi? He took a squad? Ohhh, I feel bad for you kid."

"See! So you'll do it?"

She thought it over for a few seconds before replying. "If I you have the free time, come over in the afternoons, I'll be here. If I'm on a mission, I'll leave a note. But I still don't do apprenticeships."

"Thanks so much. Where do we start?"

She smirked cruelly at him. "I'll only do it if you manage to survive an hour in the forest of death."

A small transparent window opened up right in front of her. It read:

_Mission!_

_Survive an hour in the forest of death with Anko Mitarashi._

_Rewards: increased influence with Anko Mitarashi, Status effect: Student of Anko, 5000 exp._

"What's up kid? You look… out of it."

Even if there was a pop up in front of him, nothing was perceived by her. "Huh? Oh… yeah, I accept."

The pop up closed down. "That's great kid. You've got 1 minute."

"One minute before what?"

"I start chasing you." Her smile was extremely off-putting to Naruto.

He ran as fast as he could to the gates.

00000000

About 60 minutes later.

Anko was frowning. The first 15 or so minutes had gone by swimmingly for her. She would track the kid and harass him with little things like a fist to the gut, a boa constrictor, or even just insults thrown from afar. But after that, he started liberally using shadow clones to confuse her and lead her on false trails.

She had to admit that tracking him multiple times and dispelling the clones was really fun, but they had no sustenance to them. They just dispelled and that was it. No screams, no agony, no pain. Just poof, they're gone.

For a kid, he had absolutely huge chakra reserves. They definitely surpassed her own if he could make so many splits of himself and still operate.

She was amused by all the time wasted on this survival exercise, but other than the shadow clone, he was definitely not a very good shinobi. He never even tried to chakra climb a tree to get away. Every clone that she encountered had been on foot. And even before that, the kid always ran on the ground. He didn't fight very well and showed no other skills that she could see.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a broken twig and a shoeprint in mud. A clone had been around here. She was about to run in pursuit when she heard someone shout down at her from above. "Hour's up!"

A thud later and her new blonde student was standing right in front of her. "You'll teach me now right?"

She was looking at him, gaping like a fish. "You… you led me on."

Naruto grinned. "Yup. I spent the first part on foot so you'd think that I couldn't do the tree-walking exercise, then I made an assload of clones that distracted you from the real me. After that, I just shadowed you from above. Gotta say, you're kind of unhinged."

She smiled at him. "What makes you say that brat?"

"Well you did summon a giant snake to eat one of my clones. What would you have done if that was the real me?"

"Pretend like you never existed." She said through a dangerous smile.

"That's… concerning."

"Mmhmm. It seems like you've passed through the survival training. Let's call it a day for now. Remember, meet me here on afternoons."

"Yosh."

She body flickered away from him, leaving him in the middle of the woods. 'Wait, where's the exit?'

"Well fuck. This is you trying to get back at me, isn't it?" he said to the open air.

"No it's not!" a voice sounded out from somewhere above him.

00000000

About 4 hours later.

It was thoroughly dark when Naruto finally walked through the door to his apartment.

With a groan, he fell down onto his bed and almost fell asleep. At some point, the shadow clone that was with the medic had dispelled and offloaded a lot of information into Naruto's head. He passed through at least, but it did cost Naruto a huge headache in the middle of the woods.

A headache that he did not need.

Naruto reached out for the book that was on his nightstand and opened it up. There was a text window that was superimposed onto his base stats.

_Mission accomplished._

_You get: 5000 experience points, status effect: Student of Anko_

The pop up vanished as soon as he stopped reading it. he had a level up, which he tapped on.

_You are now level 5. +5 base stat modifiers, +20 attribute stat modifiers._

_*the more you level up, the larger your attribute points gained will be, but base stat modifiers always stay the same.*_

Naruto dumped the five points into intelligence. Making it go up to 13. After hitting confirm, his headache worsened exponentially.

After that he flipped to the attribute section and decided to divide up the 20 points amongst poison identification and synthesizing, trap laying, trap detection, and poison resistance in the miscellaneous section. Bringing them all up to 5/50.

With nothing left to change, Naruto dropped the book back onto the nightstand and promptly fell asleep.

**AN/ thanks to all those who've read so far and reviewed or PMed me about pairing suggestions.**

**I've got a good idea about where I'm heading, but I'm still open to suggestions.**


	3. a lesson in romance

Chapter 3

_Anko Mitarashi:_

_What (Anko) thinks about me: interesting_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: extraneous ninja skills, mostly unknown_

_Teaching ability: 2x poison identification and synthesizing, 2x trap laying, 2x trap detection, 2x seduction, 2x torture and interrogation, 2x lying, 2x poison resistance, 2x venom resistance, 2x field medicine, 1.5x ninjutsu, 1.5x taijutsu._

'What does interesting mean? God, affability is so useless.'

_Shikamaru Nara:_

_What (Shikamaru) thinks about me: loud_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

'Why are all of these descriptions of me so vague?'

_Chouji Akamichi:_

_What (Chouji) thinks about me: nice_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown _

'Thanks man. I knew you'd have my back'

_Ino Yamanaka:_

_What (Ino) thinks about me: annoying _

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

'Well, screw you too.'

_Shino Aburame:_

_What (Shino) thinks about me:_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

'It's blank, I guess that means that he doesn't have an opinion of me.'

_Kiba Inuzuka:_

_What (Kiba) thinks about me: loud, annoying, stupid_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

'Damn mutt.'

_Hinata Hyuuga:_

_What (Hinata) thinks about me: nice, kind, caring, hard-working, funny, up-lifting, strong, determined._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

'Woah, Hinata thinks that way about me? Why didn't she say anything in the academy? I've barely interacted with her.'

Naruto shook his head in confusion and exited the 'peoples' section of his book. 'Well, my life has been turned into a game. My life specifically. It's like it affects no one other than me.' Naruto looked up at the ceiling in thought. 'Becoming the Hokage is a good goal and all, but I'm able go on the road to do anything. Medic-nin, ninjutsu specialist, genjutsu expert. I need a goal that I can work towards to in the meantime.'

Naruto went back to the 'merit' section of the guidebook and flipped to the last couple of pages for anything that spoke to him. Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto saw something called _a romantic at heart._ Tapping on it, it read:

_Romantic at heart_

_You know how people feel to such a degree, that you can innately know how they romantically feel about you, as well as what their romantic interests are._

_Pre-requisite: Charisma 30, Seduction 20/50_

_Unlocks: new features in the 'people' section of the guidebook._

Naruto's eyes grew wide. 'If I get this, then I can finally get Sakura to go on a date with me!'

Looks like Naruto has a new goal to strive for.

Mission assignment

Naruto was looking at another pop up with a little bit of confusion.

_New mission._

_Mr. HIzo needs some extra hands to milk his cows_

_Pre-requisite: have the approval of one of the mission directors._

_Reward: $300_

"What are you staring at Naruto?" Sakura asked with a little bit of concern.

"Oh, uh… nothing. Hey Kakashi?"

"Mm?" he grunted

"Can I take extra missions on my own?"

"You have to take the mission that I have assigned for all of us. But you can take some on your free time for extra money if you wish."

Naruto created a few shadow clones. "Looks like I've got some free time." he said with a smirk.

Kakashi eyed them carefully. "If it's okay with the mission directors…"

The chunin on duty sighed in annoyance. "It's not practical to send clones on missions C-ranked and above because of the relatively high chance that they could dispel mid-way through. That being said, there are a lot of D-ranked missions that have relatively low chances of that happening. So long as the mission is completed, you'll get paid. But also be aware that if are unable to complete the assignment, you won't get any money and you could also get fined for it."

"So that's a yes for shadow clones?"

"I guess. But all the responsibility rests on your shoulders."

Naruto smiled in glee. 'That takes care of the money problem. Shadow clones are so cool.'

Kakashi looked down on Naruto with his usual aloof expression. "Naruto, remember what I said about abusing shadow clones."

"Yeah yeah, I got it. But I don't see what the big deal is. After the shadow clone that went to the hospital dispelled, I only got a small headache."

"Exactly. That was _one_ clone. If too many clones that have studied various shinobi fields all dispel at once, your brain will fry itself from the offload."

"I know, I know. I'll only use shadow clones in mass to do mind-numbing tasks. And only assign two at the most to do other things"

"Oi! I don't want to do 'mind-numbing' missions" one shadow clone cried indignantly.

"Oh cool your pants. Everything you do, I remember doing."

"That doesn't make it okay."

"Yes it does."

"No it doesn't."

While Naruto and his clone were fighting, Sakura leaned next to Sasuke and whispered "Seeing Naruto argue with himself it kind of funny."

"Hn"

"Oh don't be like that. You have to admit that it's at least pretty surreal."

Sasuke grunted a confirmation once more.

About 30 minutes later.

The mission that they were all assigned on was to clean up a pool that had litter all around its rim in the middle of a botanical garden.

It didn't take up a lot of mental acuity to complete, but they all had to work together because they were all in charge of a different type of litter.

Naruto was in charge of trash, Sasuke was in charge of glass/metal recyclables, and Sakura was in charge of plastic recyclables. All while Kakashi watched from the corner of his eye of course.

It was a large pond. To get the work done in any reasonable amount of time, they had to either call out a particular item that another person was in charge of or throw it to them to be put into the bag. The hard part was that they had to communicate well, or else someone might get a soggy banana peel to the face.

"Ahhh! Fuck!" Naruto threw the peel that had landed on his head to ground as quickly as he was able to. Realizing that it was only a piece of trash, he shouted out "Oi!"

"Sorry Naruto." Sakura apologized sheepishly. "But I did call it out to you."

"I didn't hear it. Can you call it out louder next time?"

"Okay."

Naruto picked up the rapidly sinking banana peel and tossed it back into his bag. After a few more minutes of this, when Naruto had made his way unknowingly close to his sensei, Kakashi asked disinterestedly. "So what're you saving up for?"

"What?" Now Naruto had to look for trash on the surface and sides of the water, respond to Sasuke and Sakura throwing trash at him to put in his bag, and talk to Kakashi all at the same time.

"You must be taking extra missions for a reason. And I doubt that completing D-ranked missions has become something of a hobby to you."

"I'm saving up to buy the apartment next to mine." Naruto said, face still looking down at the water for trash.

"Why?"

"For the space."

"What do you need more space for?"

"Rooms."

"Like what?"

"A dojo maybe."

"A dojo?"

"Yeah, got a problem with that?"

"Why don't you just go to a dojo instead of wasting thousands of dollars' worth of renovations for a dojo in your living space?"

"It was just a thought. Maybe I could make a greenhouse in there."

"For what reason?"

"I don't know. Poisonous and medical plants?"

"It's more cost effective to buy those at a local shinobi store."

"Exotic plants that aren't sold there?"

"You'd have to get the exotic plant first."

"Then I'll fucking get it. Why are you questioning me so much?"

"It amuses me."

"Well guess what? I don't really- GAH!" a decomposing pizza box hit Naruto in the head.

"Open your ears dobe!" Sasuke yelled at him from across the pond.

Naruto sighed and put the pizza box into the bag. "What kind of person brings a pizza box to a botanical garden?" he muttered to himself.

"So how did the medic training go?"

"I got accepted. Now I'm sending a clone over there every morning."

"And your search for another teacher?"

"Only one of them accepted me." He said dismally.

"Oh really? Which one?"

"Anko Mitarashi."

"Really?"

"You sound surprised."

"She isn't exactly a proponent of the whole 'teacher student relationship.' Out of all of them, I thought she would be the one to turn you down the fastest."

"Well she didn't accept to it until I told her that you're my jonin-sensei."

"Why?"

"Don't know. By the way, when is team training going to be over?"

"Work out a time table with her already?"

"Not really. I'm just supposed to show up whenever I'm free in the afternoon."

"Hm. By the time the mission is over and team training is done, I'm thinking it might be 3ish."

"You sure? Because you have terrible sense of time."

"Hey, I've got a great sense of time. I'm just delayed for things."

"Delayed?"

"Yes."

"By what? The road of life? A black cat? An old woman who needs to cross the street?"

"Some variation of that." Kakashi went back to his porn, not wanting to talk anymore.

Naruto went back to the trash collecting in thought. Kakashi did have a point with his housing renovations. A dojo or a greenhouse might not be the best of things to spend money on. Perhaps he could spend it on things for pleasure and luxury. Like the master bedroom, or the grand bathroom.

He could also just spend the money to get into a decently sized house to see if there were any rooms worth buying. But that was risky. What if there were no rooms that had any actual use? It's not like putting a forge in a house meant getting better weapons. That being said, he now had the ability to receive mass amounts of capital by sending shadow clones en masse to the mission assignment room. He was going to start receiving large amounts of capital and didn't have a lot of other things to spend it on.

Wait. Maybe he could use the money to buy training from a jonin. No, that wouldn't work. Being a jonin is a rather lucrative business. High ranked missions pay a lot of money, they wouldn't need any more for an incentive to teach. Anything they did, they did as a matter of what they wanted, or were obligated to do.

Team 7 passed through the rest of the mission rather effortlessly, with Naruto only occasionally receiving a piece of trash to the face. Once the pond was clear of litter, Naruto and co. gathered around Kakashi for orders on what to do next.

"Okay guys, I've got some news. In a week there's going to be the annual chunin exams and we're hosting it. It's going to be slightly irregular if what Hokage-sama told me is accurate. You all have to sign waivers and report to the academy in exactly one week's time."

"Chunin exams?" Sakura asked.

"It's the series of tests that occur every six months within an alternating cast of the main five villages."

"Will you actually train us for it?" Sasuke asked.

"I'm sure that teamwork exercises will be enough for now. If you want extra training, you could do what Naruto did and find another teacher."

"So you're just pushing us off to someone else?"

"You don't have to sound so vindictive about it."

"Wait. Naruto got another teacher?" Sakura asked.

"Yup." Kakashi answered "Her name is Anko Mitarashi."

"Oi dobe, this Anko chick. What does she teach?" Sasuke asked Naruto

"Uhh… lying, and trap setting, and trap detection, and poisons. Stuff like that."

"Hn. Doesn't sound very useful."

"Then don't ask to be taught by her."

"Okay, you three" Kakashi said, interrupting them. "I'm going to go now. Train however you like."

"Hey! You said that we'd be done by 3. It's almost noon." Naruto said.

Kakashi pointed upwards to the sky. There was a hawk flying around in lazy circles. "That means that the hokage needs us jonin." With that, he body flickered away from his students.

"Rrgg. I hate that guy." Naruto said.

"So what are we supposed to do now?" Sakura asked.

"I don't know. Maybe Anko is where she said that we'd meet." Naruto said, mostly to himself.

"And I could check by the hospital to see if I'm good for being a medic nin." Sakura said.

"Well what am I supposed to do?" Sasuke asked.

"Get another teacher?" Naruto suggested.

"I don't know any other teachers."

"You like fire ninjutsu right? Kakashi said that Asuma Sarutobi was good with those."

"Didn't he turn you down?"

"Yup." Naruto started to walk off to what he perceived was the direction of the forest of death. Anko's part in the 'people' section of the book said that she was good with seduction. Just the thing he needed to get the 'Romantic at heart' merit.

Sasuke and Sakura also parted and went their separate ways after Naruto left.

About 30 minutes later.

Naruto found Anko sitting on a shack and eating dango on a stick. There was a wall to her opposite that had some of the sticks pointing out in a particular way.

"Hey kid." Anko said, waving at him. "You're kind of early. I'm still eating."

Naruto hopped up on the shack to join her. "Yeah, there was a jonin meeting and Kakashi had to leave."

She nodded in understanding. "So how is it going Naruto Uzumaki, genin of Konohagakure, retainer of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, and propagator of the shadow clone technique?"

Naruto was put on his guard immediately. "How do you know all that stuff about me?"

She nearly burst out laughing. "Phhhhhht. You're kidding right? It was so easy to get information on the kid running around in neon orange."

"It is _not_ neon orange. Why do people keep on saying that?"

"Because your outfit is difficult to look at in the sun. So bright."

"It's just orange. And are you sure that you can talk about my tenant?"

"Is that what you're calling it? You found out about it. That means that it's declassified right?"

"I don't know."

"Whatever you say Kyuubi kid. Ohhh! That's what I'm calling you from now on. Kyuubi kid."

"Don't call me Kyuubi kid."

She feigned a wince. "Sore spot?"

"You could say that." Naruto said with an annoyed tone. Maybe convincing her to teach him was a bad idea after all. "So when are you going to teach me?"

"I dunno." She said with a mouth full of dango. Swallowing, she said "Whatcha wanna start with?"

"Seduction."

She spewed out all the food that was in her mouth and burst out laughing.

"What?" he asked.

Calming down a bit, she asked in return "Aren't you a bit young to learn how to get into a girl's pants?"

Blushing a little bit, he retorted "It's not like that."

"Oh really? What's it like then?"

"Well… it's like this… I, uhhh… Okay, what is the formal definition of seduction?"

"Seduction is… using your words and actions to make someone of a compatible sexuality as you, interested in you romantically or sexually. Then using that infatuation with you to loosen their mouth and obtain information from them."

"See, getting someone interested in you romantically. That's not trying to get into a girl's pants."

She gave him a queer look. "Why do you want to learn seduction? That's a pretty weird thing to want to learn, especially seeing as you're only 12."

"I'm 13."

"The fact still remains. Why do you want to learn seduction?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head and looked at her sheepishly. "There's this… girl I like-"

She groaned audibly. "The reason that you sought me out to be your teacher was so you could learn how to talk to girls?" she asked with an irritated tone of voice.

"No, Seduction's just item one."

"And item two?"

"Trap detection."

"Three?"

Trap laying."

"Four?"

"Lying."

She looked him up and down in confusion. "When I was talking to people to get information on you, they all said that you're crazy for jutsu. You aren't going to ask for any?"

"I'm kind of taking things one step at a time for the moment."

Anko let out a long, audible sigh. "Seduction?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then. So you're not really interested in getting chicks to give you information on stuff that you might want to know. You just want to ask this girl out?"

"Isn't seduction also a good thing to know how to do?"

"Not really. There aren't very many missions that require you to obtain information via seduction. It's usually easier and cleaner to kidnap the person and drag him or her to Torture and Interrogation."

"It's cleaner to torture a person for information instead of talking to them?"

"There's a difference of opinion on the subject. But it's going to be hard for you because you're male. For men, you just have to put on a shit load of make-up, show your boobs off, and act interested in him. Women are harder."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Society, biological makeup, psychological makeup. There are a lot of theories as to why men and women act differently on a fundamental level. But that's not important right now. What is important is that they do. And that's going to change the approach on correctly seducing them."

"So how do I do it?"

"Well… the first part to seducing a female is to get any and all background information on her as possible before talking to her. Once you do, learn her interests."

"So… stalk them?"

"Bingo. After that, make sure that you 'accidentally' run into her during her usual routine and show off that you are interested in something that she is. She'll take notice of that and probably confront you about it. And because you're not stupid and actually studied up on the aforementioned subject, you'll be a master at conversing with her."

"Then what?"

"Ask her out to coffee or something. God, this is so weird to be telling a 12 year old."

"13."

"Once you get her to coffee, be a charming and affable person. At the end of it, she'll want to meet up again."

"Mmhmm."

"After a few more dates, casually bring up the subject that you're trying to learn about. More often than not, she'll spill the beans on it. If not, then just rinse and repeat."

"But what if it's something that is too much of private knowledge that it can't be brought up in public conversation."

"That's usually when you drug her and haul her ass to T&I, but if you want to risk it, you can deepen your relationship until it's to the point where she could trust you with the secret."

"Okay… and how would this work for kunoichi?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's kind of hard to stalk a kunoichi. And what are you going to do for common interests?"

"You would honestly be surprised to find out how easy it is to get information on a shinobi or a kunoichi. As for the common interests, if she doesn't have any hobbies, then she usually has some form of unique fighting style. Or at least uncommon enough to where meeting someone on the street who has the same interests would be a noteworthy event. For example, if someone wanted to seduce me, he would run into me on my way to a dango shop (Because I love dango) and 'accidentally' drop his brand new thumb screws to call attention to them (Because I'm good at… extracting information), then we'd talk about our favorite information extraction techniques, then he'd ask me out and I'd say yes because he is a nice and charming individual."

"You go for the nice and charming?"

"You bring up a good point. Sometimes women like a different type of guy than the nice and charming, but that's something to be gotten into later."

"How would I go about getting a girl who likes another guy to 'give up information'?"

"Drug her and haul her ass to T&I."

"Anko…"

"What? It is! Trying to seduce a girl who has her eyes on another man is like trying to sprout wings and fly to Fuckville. It can't be done unless you do something to drastically change her perspective of the guy that she likes."

"What if he's already a total douchebag?"

"Then get her to see the douchebag traits of his."

"What if she likes them?"

"Then kill him and help her get over the tragedy."

"What if he's my teammate?"

Anko gave Naruto a very serious look. "You know what? Somehow I don't think that this is still a hypothetical question about how to seduce a random girl in the middle of a foreign country."

Naruto's silence spoke for him.

She sighed. "Okay kid, I'll bite. Who is she?"

Naruto hesitated for a second before saying "Sakura Haruno. She's my teammate."

"And she likes your other teammate, who's a complete douche to her."

"Not her specifically. He's just a douche to everyone in general. I guess that he kind of has the right to be a douche, but that still doesn't mean that he should be one."

"This is the last Uchiha?"

He nodded.

She took a deep breath before continuing. "Listen kid, I don't know you very well. But you seem nice enough. So I'm going to tell you one thing about your situation with her."

He looked up to her with hope in his eyes.

"Forget about her."

The hope was dashed immediately.

"No matter how much of a master at seducing someone you are, that won't amount to anything if you want to start a serious relationship with her. You remember how I told you that you're supposed to learn her interests and play off of them to get her attention?"

He nodded.

"Well that only works with seduction because on a base level, you are trying to be someone who you aren't to trick someone. Trying to start a relationship on a base of lies will lead to a relationship that'll fall apart."

Naruto stewed in a long and heavy silence while he deliberated on what to say to his new teacher next. Anko let him be, knowing that he was trying to say something, but that he just didn't know how to say it right. Finally, he said "I don't care about that. My name is Naruto Uzumaki. I don't give up. I'll meet my goals. I'll get Sakura to see how much of a great guy I am. And I'll become hokage! Because I'm Naruto Uzumaki and that's just the kind of guy I am."

Anko looked down on him with a little bit of surprise. "Huh? So you're going to completely disregard my suggestion?" she asked with a dangerous looking smile on her face.

Naruto looked at her fearfully.

The special jonin laughed a bit. "You know what kid? I think I like you."

"So you'll still help me?"

"I guess. It might be interesting to see how this all pans out. I am going to teach you 4 things to get you good at seduction. 1.) Collection of information on the target. 2.) Successful confrontation of the target. 3.) Properly asking the target out on a date. 4.) Being a suave and charming person on the date. Today, we are going to verbally run down each and every aspect of those four targets. Tomorrow, you will practice all that you learned today on me while you are under a Transformation. After all, we can't have you trying to seduce some random kunoichi off the sides of the street. If you're found out, you could be tried for emotional injuries."

"Okay. Got it."

Anko smirked. This might be fun.

**AN/ I'm Fairly certain that no one knows how I write, but it's pretty random. I've got a good idea as to how it's going to pan out in the short run and I've also got a good idea as to what the pairing is, but I'm thinking of possibly, **_**possibly**_**, expanding this into a harem.**

**So tell me your preferences and a good reason as to why it would be a good fit for the story. When Kakashi said that the chunin exams were going to be slightly different, he wasn't joking ;)**

**I kind of feel like I learned a lot from my first story (Never use shadow clones to do your paperwork) in making slightly more believable dialogue and character interactions. That being said, I'm the artist and it's hard as an artist to look subjectively at my stories.**

**As always, read and review. It really helps me out : ) **

**Have a gentlemanly day. **


	4. a new thing to consider

Chapter 4

"_For information gathering, you have a few options. You can eavesdrop on the person in question or their close friends to find out information. You can break into their domicile and go through their stuff to find out interests. And you can follow them around town to find out their day patterns."_

"_That sounds like something someone would do over a few weeks. Not a morning."_

"_You're right. We're operating on a limited time schedule, so I'll give you a few hints. I am good friends with Kurenai Yuhi and Genma Shiranui."_

"_Anything else?"_

"_You can't use dango or T&I to try and seduce me tomorrow. Find out something new, then use it on me."_

"_Got it."_

00000000

"Are you Kurenai Yuhi?"

"Yes, who are you?" Kurenai asked the stranger that was confronting her. They were situated in a breakfast bar where Kurenai was hoping to get some brunch with Asuma. Asuma had yet to arrive, so Kurenai was left alone until she was accosted by this unknown individual

"My name is Kazama Arashi. Anko Mitarashi mentioned that she was good friends with you."

Kurenai narrowed her eyes at him. He didn't look suspicious, just a kid in his late teens, but anyone who wanted something to do with Anko was usually up to no good. "That is correct. Do you need something from her?"

He scratched the back of his head nervously. "Well, information mostly."

Kurenai adopted an irritated look. So there was another one of these pricks. Kurenai thought that they had all lost interest at that point. "Look, she's not a danger to Konoha. She's not a sleeper agent. And she is most certainly is not secretly plotting something with Orochimaru."

Kazama waved his arms in front of him in denial. "No no. it's not like that. I just want to know what she likes... that sounds even more suspicious doesn't it?"

Kurenai nodded, still with an annoyed look on her face.

"Look, I just uhh… I just met her a few days ago and I kind of like her. I want to ask her out, but I don't know what she likes. I'm not really one for stalking people around town, so I was hoping that you'd give me some advice on her."

Kurenai stared at him unsurely. He seemed genuine, but Kurenai didn't think it was too wise to lend out information of her friends away to strangers. So she decided to test him to make sure of his intentions. "What do you like about her?" she asked. His response would dictate whether or not she would give away any of her interests.

He adopted a far away and dreamy look. "Her smile, mostly."

"Her smile?" Kurenai asked unbelievingly. Anko didn't smile. She smirked in amusement.

He seemed to note her concerns. "Not that weird smirking thing she does. Her smile. Her _real_ smile… It's… beautiful." He replied dreamily.

Kurenai's expression softened. So he was just a love-struck, nervous teenager after all. "You really just want to ask her out? Nothing else?"

"Nothing." He said seriously.

Perhaps Anko would benefit from dating someone like this. People who acted like Kazama don't come around often, and it could have a calming effect on Anko's personality. "Okay, I'll help you out. But I won't give away anything other than she enjoys performing tea ceremonies."

Kazama beamed at her with a wide smile. "Thanks so much." He said, moving away from the breakfast bar and Kurenai.

"Wait." She called out to him.

He turned around to face her.

"If you hurt her, I'll make you wish you were dead."

Kazama didn't look perturbed in the slightest. "Don't worry, I don't plan on it." he replied cheekily before once more turning around and exiting the building.

'He seems like a sweet guy. I hope that he and Anko hit it off.'

Unknown to her, once Kazama was out of her line of sight, he poofed away into a puff of smoke.

00000000

Naruto stopped what he was doing to process the information that the clone got from Kurenai.

'She's into performing tea ceremonies? Weird.' Naruto was holed up in his apartment acting like a hub of information on all the clones that he had to keep track of.

Naruto dispelled the clone that was looking for Genma. It hadn't gotten really far at all.

There was a loud knocking on his front door which diverted his attention away from the mission at hand. "NARUTO. OPEN UP" Sakura's voice shouted from outside his door.

He quickly went to unlock and open the door to find a very pissed off Sakura standing in front of him. "Where were you?" she hissed out at him.

"Oh. I didn't send a shadow clone to tell you guys that I'd be taking a mission with my other sensei today, did I?" Naruto said in realization.

"Nope." She ground out. "Me and Sasuke were waiting forever for you to show up."

"I'm sorry. Is there an important mission that we're being assigned on?"

She sighed into the palm of her hand. "No. Kakashi is still on that mission so he sent one of his dogs to inform us of that. We waited for you to show up so we could tell you too. But you never came." She said vindictively.

"Again, I'm really sorry. But I'm kind of busy with the mission right now."

"You're _on_ the mission? Right now?"

"Yeah. Now if you'd please…" Naruto trailed off, trying to get her to leave him to his seduction. Time was of the essence after all.

"What mission?"

"It's a secret and I need to get back to it."

"Can I watch?"

"Don't you have to go to the hospital to get some medical training?"

"I'm scheduled for this afternoon."

"Why don't you ask Sasuke out on a date?"

"Already did. He turned me down."

"I'm very sorry that he turned you down, but I need to get back to the mission now. Goodbye." Naruto tried to close the door, but Sakura blocked it with her foot.

"Is it a training mission?" She asked innocently. Smirking inwardly.

Naruto took a deep breath before answering her. "You aren't going to leave, are you?" The blonde didn't really want his love interest to know about what he was learning.

"Heh. Nope. Consider it payback for not telling me and Sasuke where you were."

Naruto relented. "Okay, fine. You can watch. But it's going to be boring for you."

"I don't care." Naruto opened the door for her and led her inside.

Sakura looked around with a little bit on confusion on her brow. "It's so clean." She whispered.

"Uh-huh. I did some spring cleaning." Naruto spawned two shadow clones.

"You." He pointed to the first one. "Go to the library and find out anything and everything about what a tea ceremony is. You." He pointed to the second one. "Follow him to find out what you need to do it, then buy all the materials available. Here's some money for it." Naruto told the clones, handing the second one no small amount of money. They immediately ran out the door to accomplish their tasks.

"Your special training with Anko is tea ceremonies?" Sakura asked incredulously.

"No. That's just a part of it."

"Well what is your training?"

"It's uuhhh…" Telling Sakura that was training in seduction probably wasn't the best of things to do. "Learning how to date." He said with a wince. That sounded like the weirdest thing ever.

"Learning how to date." She parroted with a deadpan. "Your super special training with your female sensei is learning how to date girls. This is the reason why you made me and Sasuke wait for an hour at mission assignment?"

"Well it's not just learning how to date. It's learning how to date other girls from foreign countries in order to obtain information from them by using their infatuation with me against them." Naruto said very quickly

"So… like… seduction?"

"If you want to call it that." Naruto said, relieved that Sakura came to that conclusion on her own.

"Why are you learning seduction? That isn't very useful."

"It can be useful."

"Well… I guess, if you use it correctly. But you don't really seem like the kind of person to do that."

"To seduce?"

"Yeah. Earning someone's trust only to break it immediately. I know that it could be used to get critical information to save the lives of our teammates and that's a good thing. You just… don't seem like the kind of person to do that."

"I have my reasons." Naruto said simply. He, in truth, did not want to do that. Even if they were the enemy, making a bond with someone and breaking it immediately did not sound appealing to him in the slightest. The only reason that Naruto wanted to do this was so he could get the Romantic at Heart merit and find out how he could get Sakura romantically interested in him. Everything else was just a means to do so. Although learning how to properly ask someone out on a date and learning how to maintain a date was also very handy information.

"Erm, sure." Sakura said unsurely. "So what is this mission about exactly?"

"Well first I have to obtain information about her."

"How?"

"Eavesdrop. Talk to her friends. Go through her stuff-"

"So like stalking?"

"Yes. I've already got the information that I need, the only thing that's left is for me to learn about her interest, which is performing tea ceremonies, and keeping track of her location, which is being done by using a liberal fuck-ton of shadow clones."

"Who is it that you're seducing?"

"My sensei."

"Okay, what then?"

"Then I casually bump into her on the street and somehow get her to notice how much of a tea ceremony connoisseur I am. Then we talk a bit and I ask her out on a date to get coffee or something."

"This is… weird."

"I know. Now the only thing left for me to do is to wait for the shadow clones that I just sent to get the items and information I need."

"You sound… prepared for this. How long have you been practicing?"

"After I left yesterday she drilled me on how to do every aspect of seduction for a grand total of 7 hours. This is just testing me on how well I can use that information."

"7 hours? How much stuff did you need to know that you trained for 7 hours?"

"Other than how to do each step, I had to memorize lines that would be useful to 'court' someone. Different ways to ask her out on a date, different questions to ask her on said date, different ways to imply that you are interested in going on another date, subtle ways to bring up the information that you are trying to extract."

"What information?"

"For now, it's just some bogus stuff about the hokage."

"When are you going to leave?"

"As soon as my clone at the library pops and I get my tea ceremony gear."

00000000

"_There are more than a few ways to get a girl to notice you. You could do something that makes you stand out from the crowd of other eligible bachelors, or you could do something that makes her think that the two of you have something in common. Do you want to tell me why the first one doesn't always work?"_

"_Because… not all attention is good attention?"_

"_Good boy. You're learning. It's more effective to go with the latter option because if you do something that the other person likes, you'll naturally gravitate towards each other even if this wasn't a seduction. Kind of like how kids instinctually organize themselves into different social groups based on their likes and dislikes. If you manage to call attention to the fact that you two have something in common, more often than not, she'll confront you about it and make conversation."_

"_But what are you going to do?"_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_Even if you give me the benefit of the doubt tomorrow, you'll still know that someone is intentionally going to try and draw attention to something that you like. How do I know that you'll act the way you'd act if you didn't know that someone was trying to seduce you."_

"_Tomorrow's exercise is meant to determine your level, not mine. If you do the right thing, I'll approach you. If you do the wrong thing, I won't."_

00000000

"Ahhh!" there was a large clanging of various tea making implements as they struck the floor of the dango restaurant.

"Hey! Watch were you're go…ing." Anko looked on in shock at the various items that were on the floor and at the man who was busy apologizing profusely and doing his best to pick them all up.

"I am so sorry. I don't know what happened. I just-"

"It's fine." She up from her booth to help pick up the tea making tools that littered the floor.

A tea whisk, a tea scoop, a chakin, a tea bowl. Yup, instruments for a tea ceremony. How did he hear about her enjoyment of tea ceremonies? The only person she's told that to is Kurenai. There was also nothing laying around her house that could denote her affection of the ceremony. He shouldn't have been able to find out.

Once they got all the items back into the bag that he dropped, she asked "You a big fan of tea ceremonies?"

"Huh? Oh, I used to not be. My kid sister got me into them and their surprisingly enjoyable." He said with a smile.

"What's your favorite, thin tea or thick tea?"

"I personally prefer thick tea, but I like both. Why? Do you like them too?"

"The tea ceremonies? I'm all about them."

"Really? They're-"

"Ahem." And old man interrupted. He was trying to get past them, but they were blocking the way.

"Oh, ummm." The young man said nervously, not knowing what to do.

Anko sat down at the booth. "Come on, sit down."

He did as was asked, but still looked a little nervous. "Are you… waiting for anyone? I wouldn't want to be a bother."

"Oh it's fine. My name's Anko, what's yours?"

"Kazama."

She looked him up and down. In a word, he was non-descript. Average height, nice build, good features, young body. A nice, average guy. "Kazama. I like that name. So what do you like about tea ceremonies?"

He sighed wistfully. "I don't know. They're just… fun. I don't know how else to explain it. I like them. How about you?"

"I like… their pageantry. Their elegance. Their formalities. I don't know why I like those things, but they really call out to me."

"Oh really?"

"You sound surprised."

"I guess that I didn't think a trained shinobi would be into those types of things."

"Us shinobi are people too you know."

"Oh I know. Don't worry. In fact, I trained in the academy when I was younger."

"What happened?"

"Eehhh… you know the old story. My family fell on hard times. I had to help out in the shop. Couldn't be a ninja like I wanted to be"

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I like the life I have. But I've always wondered what it would be like if I was able to keep on attending the academy and become a shinobi."

"It's not all fun and games you know."

"I know. But it still seems so liberating. Being able to pick your own time table. Travel the world. Get lots of money for doing high ranked mission."

She laughed a little bit. "Yeah, I guess it is pretty cool. And if anyone talks to you that you don't like, you can just pick up a knife and threaten them away."

He laughed at her joke. Not overtly so, but enough to show that he derived genuine amusement from it. When he finished, Kazama said "I know that is kind of sudden… but would you like to get dinner sometime?"

"I'll have to check my schedule. You free anytime this week?"

"I'm kind of on a tight schedule on the moment. Maybe tonight?"

She seemingly lost interest in the train of conversation in favor of stretching all the kinks out of her body. He seemed confused by this sudden, lethargic action, but made no mention of it

"Take off the transformation." She ordered once she had finished the stretching.

Kazama's expression went from surprised to downtrodden in just a few seconds. With a poof, Naruto sat in the place that Kazama used to occupy. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

"Nope. In fact, you did everything right. I don't need to see anymore."

"Does that mean that… I'm good?"

"Yup. If you need to go into a foreign country and need get a girl to make and retain an emotional bond with you in an effort to divulge secrets, you'll do just fine."

"But I didn't even get to the point where I ask you about the secret."

"Don't have to. You're a pretty good actor with good spying jutsu and you're able to think up things on the fly. You're golden for it."

"Thanks sensei. Still, it kind of feels like 7 hours of memorization and drilling are going to waste."

"They aren't going to waste. You have them locked in your head. This exercise was meant to see if you could use the information given to you and you demonstrated that you could. There's no more need to go on."

"I guess that makes sense."

"Of course it does. I'm your sensei. So what do you want to work on now? You said something about trap detection?"

"Yup."

"Now _that's_ a good skill to learn."

"And seduction isn't?"

"Trap detection is more likely to save your life in the field."

"And yet, you still lectured me for 7 hours on the ins and outs of seduction."

"If I'm going to teach something, I'm going to teach it well."

"Yeah, thanks for that by the way. _Really_, thank you."

"For teaching you seduction? Did you really want to learn it that bad?"

"Not seduction specifically. You're the first person to actually try and teach me seriously. And I'm just… thanks. Seriously, thanks."

Anko reached over and tussled the blonde's hair. "Don't worry about it kid. Now, for you to learn about trap detection, I have to make some traps first. That means that we won't be able to work on it this afternoon."

"That's fine. I have to check up on some things anyway."

"Cool. Will you be able to get there at noon tomorrow?"

"Uh-huh. Kakashi's on a mission right now, so I have some free time."

The snake jonin grabbed the remainder of her dango and smirked at him. "See ya then." After saying that she vanished in a puff of smoke.

00000000

Naruto fell on top of his bed and brought out his book. He was close to getting the Romantic at Heart perk. The only thing left to do was to level up once more and get that merit point. Opening it up to the front page, it read:

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 'Seduce' Anko 3000 exp, +10 seduction, increased influence with Anko._

Naruto closed the achievement window to look at his base stats

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP: 126/7000 level-ups available._

_Level: 6_

_Chakra: 51_

_Chakra Control: 21_

_Wisdom: 41_

_Intelligence: 13_

_Charisma: 51_

_Flexibility: 11_

_Speed: 13_

_Strength: 11_

_Endurance: 41_

Naruto glanced at the level in slight confusion. Where did all the experience come from?

A clone popped. Naruto winced and began to sort out the influx of information. It was a 'job clone', apparently it finished a rather lucrative D-rank mission and got some money and experience for it. Naruto looked back down at the base stats

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP: 726/7000 level-ups available._

_Level: 5_

_Chakra: 51_

_Chakra Control: 21_

_Wisdom: 41_

_Intelligence: 13_

_Charisma: 51_

_Flexibility: 11_

_Speed: 13_

_Strength: 11_

_Endurance: 41_

Some of the jobs give experience? Shouldn't he instinctually know that? Weird. But at least this meant that he could get the Romantic at Heart merit now. Tapping on the level-up, some more text popped up:

_You are now level 6: you have gained +5 base stat modifiers, +22 attribute modifiers, and +1 merit point._

Naruto looked in consideration at his stats before putting all five base modifiers into his strength, raising it up to 16, and hitting confirm.

All of his muscles locked up suddenly and with no forewarning. He felt them flexing out of control for several, very long and uncomfortable seconds. When it was over, he got up from his bed to test out his new body.

Naruto turned and stretched his self out a bit. Looking at his arm, he had indeed obtained more muscle mass in that particular area, meaning that he could probably lift heavier things. Naruto patted down his torso and felt a little bit more muscle underneath the skin as well. Heh cool.

Naruto went to the attribute sections next to check on his seduction level.

_Seduction 35/50_

So that means that he definitely had enough seduction to unlock Romantic at Heart. But he had 22 more points to place and he didn't know where to place them. The blonde could put the rest into the four miscellaneous sections that he had increased two nights before, but he had done that mostly so that the training with Anko in the beginning wouldn't be as hard. Aside from the strength stat, he hadn't increased any of his combat abilities. So he decided that it would probably make sense to put it in Taijutsu.

He decided to bring his Taijutsu form from a 13/200 to a 35/200. With that done, he headed over to the merit section to buy the Romantic at Heart perk.

'Now, let's see what Sakura likes.'

_Sakura Haruno:_

_What (Sakura) thinks about you: annoying, kind of weird._

_Sakura has (no) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who listen to me, men who are nice, men who enjoy the same things that I do, men who are strong and can take care of me, men who respect me._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown._

Naruto sweatdropped. 'Other than being strong, Sasuke is the exact opposite of what she likes.' He shook his head in confusion. 'Well, I have a merit that cost me 7 hours of lecturing and half a seduction mission. Might as well use it. I wonder what Anko likes. I could totally tease her about it tomorrow.'

_Anko Mitarashi:_

_What (Anko) thinks about you: interesting, sincere, hard-working,_

_Anko has (little) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who like for who I am instead of what I am, men who can fight for themselves, men who are nice, men who are capable of forming their own opinions, men who are interesting._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

'Well, I am officially confused. HOW IS IT THAT ANKO HAS MORE ROMANTIC FEELINGS FOR ME THAN SAKURA?!' Naruto mentally screamed. '*mental sigh* well, she has no interest in starting a relationship, so I guess that it shouldn't affect anything very much, which is good.'

Naruto got up from bed and checked out his 'property poster'. Nothing had changed except for the fact that his money had increased to $3012 Not enough to buy the apartment that was next to him.

It was early afternoon and Naruto didn't have much to do. 'Maybe I can practice throwing kunai?' Naruto bent over to grab his ninja bag, only to feel some things that were lumpy and weird from its outside. He reached in to grab the unknown objects and brought out two new things. A small pamphlet and what looked like a binder.

Naruto groaned. 'More things?' he cracked open the binder first. The cover page read:

_Material goods and wealth proliferation._

_*This binder contains all of your properties, their values, their management, their profit, and so on. It also details all properties that are for sale in Konoha and the Elemental Stock Exchange.*_

He flipped over to the next page, but it read:

_You have no items or extraneous properties of interest or value._

'Well isn't that insulting.' Naruto flipped over to the next page and was thoroughly confused once more. On it was a whole lot of line graphs that had strange acronyms and percent values that changed every couple of seconds. There wasn't even an explanation bubble, it just expected that Naruto already knew this.

He tossed the binder to the side. 'I'm not going to need that for a while.'

Opening up the pamphlet, it read:

_Quest log_

_*Quests are different from missions in that they can only be performed once and that they are all unique. They also usually have some sort of reward that will help you out later on. The reward will also only be given if it is initiated and done by you. No lumping the quest on another person or thing capable of doing so*_

'Really? Cool! Wait, does this mean that I can't use shadow clones?' Naruto flipped to the few pages. There were only a few of them at the moment.

_Quest: teach Konohamaru corps how to do the substitution jutsu._

_Reward: +10 teaching skill, vastly increased influence with the Konohamaru corps._

_Quest: Help Genma to find his favorite senbon._

_Reward: new skill: senbon jutsu, basic scroll on senbon jutsu._

_Quest: Help Ino man her family store_

_Reward: +10 gardening, +10 Poison identification and synthesizing, +10 medicinal identification and synthesizing, basic medical and poison plants._

_Quest: Someone has stolen the Hokage's porn stache, bring the man to justice!_

_Reward: $1000 dollars, plain bo staff, basic scroll on bojutsu._

Naruto sweatdropped. 'Old man… really? I get that you're a perv, but seriously?'

Well now what? It sounds like he can't use shadow clones to do any of them, so he has to do them himself. If any of them take any amount of significant time to accomplish then it could interfere with his training with Anko.

He did have the afternoon however. He could probably do at least one of them by then. Naruto didn't know what bojutsu was, so he passed on that; nor did he have any actual gardening skills, or any idea of how to take care of plants; and it didn't sound like training the Konohamaru corps gave him anything good (he would probably do it at some point, because he's a good person like that). Senbon jutsu sounded cool. Haku used them and nearly won on the battle of the bridge.

Naruto tapped on Genma's mission. Another text box popped up and told him that the quest could only be accepted in training ground 5.

Naruto pocketed the pamphlet and walked out the door in the direction of training ground 5.

00000000

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Kurenai walked to her door sedately to answer it.

"Hey Crimson-chan. Mind if I come in for a bit?" Anko asked with a creepily smiling visage upon her face.

"Oh. Umm sure?" Anko promptly walked inside and fell on the sofa, never ceasing that smile of hers. She didn't say anything after that, which creeped Kurenai out something fierce.

She walked over and sat on the chair opposite Anko. "Is there something wrong?" she ventured.

"Hmmm… let me see… quick question, did you perhaps tell anyone about my love of tea ceremonies?"

Oh shit. That wasn't good. "There was this one guy, but he seemed sweet. Did you turn him down?"

Anko laughed a little. "Kurenai, I haven't told you this, because it's a rather recent event. But I'm teaching a genin"

Kurenai's eyes widened in surprise "You took on an apprentice?"

"Nope, just a kid that I'm teaching what I know to."

"So an apprentice?"

"A student."

"Okay, what does this have to do with anything?"

"The first thing that he suggested to learn was seduction."

"And what does… oohhhh." Kurenai said in realization.

"Yup. In a training exercise, I told him to mock seduce me and all he had to do was walk right up to you and ask for the ammunition."

"But he seemed… he just seemed so genuine." Kurenai said for an excuse.

"Yup. Apparently he's a natural at it. I just want to clarify that you are to tell NO ONE about my hobby."

"Okay. I've got it. I'm sorry. So who're you teaching?"

"Naruto Uzumaki."

"The container of the Kyuubi?"

"That's the one."

"Huh. So he did find a teacher."

"What do you mean?"

"He was asking around the jonin to see if any of them would teach him. But from what I've heard, no one accepted him."

"Even you?"

"I'm busy with my own squad at the moment. I can't spare any time for other students."

"That's a shame. He's actually a pretty good student. But that's enough of that. How's it going with you and Asuma?" Anko asked with a perverted leer.

"Nothing new, he's distant and hard to get a hold of. What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Any new romantic conquests?"

"Nope. You know me, I only try to start a relationship with people I can stand. And I don't stand many people."

"The only people that you try with are people who are mentally and emotionally scarred. Remember your 'date' with Kakashi?"

Anko growled a little bit at the mention of him name. "Yeah, I remember. So who do _you_ recommend?"

"Genma."

"Stop trying to make that happen. It's not going to happen."

"But you two would look so sweet together."

"No we wouldn't. I can only see him as a friend and he can only see me as a friend. Don't you even remember that 'get-together' that _you_ tried to orchestrate?"

"That was when you were genin. You're all grown up now."

"That was before-!" Anko cut herself off midsentence.

Kurenai was rendered slightly speechless. "Look, Anko. I'm sorry-"

"It's fine." Anko interrupted. "Just… just don't tell anyone about the tea ceremony thing. Okay?" with that, Anko got up and made to the door.

"Anko-" the slamming of her front door cut Kurenai off before she could even start.

'She's still sensitive about it I guess.'

**AN/ yeah… this is going in the NaruAnko direction.**

**The credit for the quest idea as well as the beginning quests goes to Zweig.**

**If you have an idea that would fit well into this story, throw it in the reviews. If I think that I can properly implement it, I'll send you a PM asking for permission.**

**Thanks to all those who've read so far.**

**As always, have a gentlemanly day.**


	5. a few changes to the norm

Chapter 5

8:30 A.M.

_Quest: Help Ino man her family store_

_Reward: +10 gardening, +10 Poison identification and synthesizing, +10 medicinal identification and synthesizing, basic medical and poison plants._

Naruto was at the cash register helping to scan the items, accept the money, take out the correct change, and wish the customer a happy day. It was monotonous work that helped the time to pass by quickly.

He didn't know why the store was so packed full of men and women trying to buy either their choice of flowers, or flowers that are recommended for them by the resident Yamanaka, Ino. This reason is why she needed help running the store. She couldn't ring people up for their flowers and help to suggest flowers to people in unique situations at the same time. Isn't it just so lucky that the resident loud-mouthed, impatient, unpredictable Uzumaki Naruto was there to help her out?

Luckily she was desperate enough to accept help from anyone at the time. Soon enough though, (two hours to be exact) the amount of people entering the store trickled to a crawl and Naruto was sitting bored behind a cash register.

When it was only him and Ino sitting in the room quietly, she decided to speak up. "Thanks Naruto, you wouldn't believe how busy it is today, or how busy it was yesterday."

"Yeah, don't worry. I'm not usually the type to just not help out someone when they're in trouble."

"Still, you were behind that register for like two hours. You should probably receive pay for work rendered."

"Seriously, I'm fine."

"But isn't this cutting in your training time with your sensei, Anko?"

"She said to report in at noon, so- Wait. How do you know that I'm being taught by her?"

"Sakura came by my place last night to talk. By the way, what's up with you taking seduction classes?"

"She told you?!"

"Yeah, did you not want anyone to know?"

"It… would have been preferred."

"Oops, sorry." She went through the motions of zipping her lips. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me. So come on, let the beans spill. Why're you taking seduction classes?"

"I'm not taking them anymore." Naruto said defensively.

"Not a good fit then? What am I talking about, of course it's not a good fit. You're Naruto. You don't do seduction."

"The reason that I'm not taking those classes anymore is because I don't have to."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Anko says that I'm good enough."

"Good enough for what?"

"Good enough for you to mind your own business."

She rose her hands up to torso level in defense. "Alright alright, I'm sorry. I probably stepped over the line huh?"

"No… I'm just scared that people are going to assume things if they hear that I took those lessons." Seriously, he really should have thought that decision through a little bit more.

"You shouldn't worry about that. If what you said is true, then even if people do find out, it should blow over soon. Oh wait! You're new teacher is Anko. You're going to be learning about poison stuff soon right?"

"Errr yeah. Do you know her?"

"She works in the intelligence area that my dad works in. Hold on, I'll be right back." Ino ran into the backroom to get something. After a fair bit of rummaging around, she brought out a couple of plants. One looked like a normal flower with a bell-like flower bulb shape with a few six-petal flower heads on the tops and sides of it, the other looked like a normal fern. "These are Narcissus and the Lady Fern. Narcissus is fairly toxic when ingested, and the lady fern helps to sooth pain in small cuts and bruises when it's all mashed up. If you're learning under Anko, then you're learning with poisonous and medical plants. You should keep these. We have tons of them lying around in the back."

"Really? Awesome, this is great. Thanks Ino." Naruto said, gingerly lifting the plants from Ino's arms.

"Give the Narcissus a moderate amount of water each day and the Lady Fern a lot of water each day."

"Cool. Thanks for the help Ino. I'll be back tomorrow morning to see if you still need help."

"See ya then. Thanks again for the help."

A text box popped up in front of Naruto. _Quest completed: help Ino man her family store._

Naruto exited the store and handed the two plants to a shadow clone which he created, then went in the direction of the academy. Konohamaru and co. needed help with the Substitution jutsu, and as their boss, he felt it was his duty to inform them about it.

Yesterday he had found out that although quests have to be initiated and 'completed' by the original Naruto, clones could help out in the in-between. Granted, he only found that out after getting tired of scouring a training ground for a single, useless senbon and deciding that not getting the senbon skill was worth the risk of finding out if he could use shadow clones to help out with quests. 5 hours later, even with the help of shadow clones, he got the scroll and the skill from Genma. Naruto still didn't know if the mechanics of the game that he was in was affecting the real world, or if it was the other way around. But seeing as Ino decided that his reward was to be poisonous and medical plants due to his relationship with his sensei, he was leaning on the latter.

Currently, he had five clones working on jobs; one clone working on medical training, which was going swimmingly; one clone working on the senbon training; and one clone maintaining his house.

Naruto also had a problem. After using his merit point to get the Romantic at Heart merit, he was down an achievable goal. After scouring the merit section for other things that he could look forward to, he came to the conclusion that the vast majority of all of those points were useless.

It was full of things that he either had absolutely no use for, like the Broker's Guile, which gave him a significant boost in property management. Things that he had absolutely no ways of obtaining, like the Lighting Rod, which made him a complete badass and gave him complete control of the lightning element, but it required that he had 200/200 lightning element manipulation. He still didn't know what elemental manipulation was! There were also the things that people would question about. Hey Naruto, how is it that you can now suddenly grow bones out of your body? Hey Naruto, how is it that you suddenly awakened the Sharingan in your eyes? Hey Naruto, how is it that you can shit gold now?

If Naruto was going to make any of those goals a reality, he was going to have to talk to the Third. Not a conversation that he was particularly looking forward to. Hey Gramps, guess what. Back in wave, my life got turned into a videogame. Now I can awaken the Sharingan if I want to.

Naruto respected and loved the Third like a grandfather, but he also knew that he was the leader of a legion of ninjas and would probably not believe that Naruto was who he said he was if he suddenly brought that thing out to light.

So Naruto was down to trying to level up to boost his base stats. But he wasn't even able to do that effectively! The book explained it that he would get experience from fighting. It's not like he can just walk down the street and challenge someone to a ninja duel. Those things just don't happen. So he was stuck trying to get experience the way that he suspected the game just threw in to give him a bone, by getting achievements and completing missions. The quests didn't even give experience, but they usually evened it out by giving him something that couldn't be valued with experience points, things like skills, or increased influence amongst the population's various individuals.

But that doesn't matter right now. Naruto had to concentrate on completing the quests at the moment.

10:45 A.M.

_Quest: teach Konohamaru corps how to do the substitution jutsu._

_Reward: +10 teaching skill, vastly increased influence with the Konohamaru corps._

"Yeah boss! You're the best! Thanks so much for helping us out." Konohamaru said excitedly with the rest of the corps behind him in their adulations.

"Don't worry about it too much. I'm just doing my duty as your boss." Naruto said with no small amount of pride in his voice. "Now… to start out… aha!" Naruto created a clone which immediately transformed into a small chair. "To start with the substitution jutsu, it's easier to first start out with a simple, unmoving object much like this one."

The corps nodded their heads in wonder.

"Now. To do the jutsu, you first have to do the handseals to collect and mold your chakra for you, then you have to reach your chakra out towards the object, then you have to release all the chakra that you've been storing in your body all in one go."

"I wanna go first!" Konohamaru said.

Naruto gestured to the chair. "When you're ready."

"Okay, okay. I've got this." Konohamaru started bouncing up and down while shaking his limbs back and forth in an effort to get psyched up. Once he reached maximum psych, he pulled his hands into the correct handseals and started concentrate as hard as he could on the task. Soon there were small blue sparks that lit up around him, denoting intense chakra shaping going on.

"**Substitution"** Konohamaru shouted out as loud as he could.

Both he and the chair were still stuck in the same place as before.

"Rrrgg." Konohamaru growled out dismally.

"It helps if you imagine reaching out an arm made of chakra in the direction of the object and grabbing hold of it."

"I wanna try. I wanna try." Moegi said cheerfully.

"Remember, chakra arm."

"Yeah." Moegi said with a nod. She created the required handseals and scrunched her brow up really hard in concentration. Sparks of blue chakra began to form around her, but they moved at a far more languid pace than Konohamaru's.

"**Substitution"** Moegi said in a calm voice.

She had the same results that Konohamaru did, despite her efforts.

"Awww…" Moegi said disparately.

Naruto started to think about the reasons why they weren't getting this concepts very well. He had practically mimicked what the academy teachers had told him when he and the rest of his class were learning substitution. But then again, he grasped the concept of the substitution jutsu slightly faster than everyone in his class. What else could he tell them to help them out?

"Oh! One more thing. Try to concentrate on your chakra flow and stabilize it when you're reaching out. The problem might stem from the fact that you aren't using enough control." Naruto said with a smug look on his face. He remembered how Sakura had told him about the concentration of chakra thing back in wave to help him out with his exercise. It had helped exponentially back there, so it made sense that it would help here.

Udon was the next to step up to plate. Going through the handseals, he took far longer to release the chakra that he built up than the others. But it paid off in that when he did release, he disappeared in a puff of smoke and replaced the chair clone in its position. After realizing what he had done, the young boy began to jump up and down in joy.

"Great job Udon!" Naruto said ecstatically. "Now you two, try focusing your chakra more before letting go."

"Right!" they both cried out in mock salute.

After a few more failed attempts, they were all capable of doing the substitution after about 30 seconds of intense concentration.

"Remember guys, enemy shinobi aren't going to let you wait around for 30 seconds to do your escape jutsu. Being able to do the jutsu and being able to do the jutsu well enough to the point where it would be useful in battle are two very different things. So keep training with the jutsu."

"Right!" They all shouted, once more in mock salute.

_Quest Completed: teach Konohamaru corps how to do the substitution jutsu._

11:00

_Quest: Someone has stolen the Hokage's porn stache, bring the man to justice!_

_Reward: $1000 dollars, plain bo staff, basic scroll on bojutsu._

Naruto looked around the village proper intently. He didn't even know what he was looking for, but he guessed that he'd know it when he saw it. There was a flash of a man hurrying through the crowd with no tact at all. He was nondescript for the most part except for the fact that he was carrying a bundle of books under his arm.

It was a _large_ bundle of books.

Naruto sweatdropped. 'Gramps…'

Naruto jumped up from the rooftop and ran after the man on foot. He looked tired and nervous, nothing like a professional spy from another nation would be expected to act. Naruto created 5 shadow clones and surrounded him with no hope of him getting away. The man stopped directly in the middle of the surrounding of shadow clones and began to shake nervously.

"Yo, what's up? Is that perchance the porn stache of the-"

"YES. It is. Just take it. This has given me nothing but trouble all day long." The man handed it off to one of the clones and ran out of the circle, looking over his shoulder all the way.

Naruto sweatdropped. 'Well that was easier than I expected. Might as well deliver this to Gramps.'

000000000

"Look, I just need to drop this thing off on him."

"Well if you don't have a meeting, you won't be able to get inside." The secretary huffed at him with an irritated tone of voice.

"Is that right? So I can't deliver this stuff to him even though he's already here? Fascinating." Naruto said with an airy voice.

"HEY GRAMPS. I HAVE YOUR FUCKING PORN STACHE. COME DOWN AND GET IT OR ELSE IT GOES TO THE FIRE!." Naruto belted out at the top of his lungs in the middle of the waiting room to see the hokage in administration.

An ANBU melted out of the shadows and wordlessly took the bundle from Naruto and handed him a bo staff, a small scroll, and a small bundle of $100 bills.

_Quest Completed: Someone has stolen the Hokage's porn stache, bring the man to justice!_

Naruto sweatdropped. 'This quest was weird.'

Naruto walked out administration and took out his Quest Log Pamphlet Thing to check off all the quests. There were two new ones.

_Quest: Hide Kiba_

_Reward: enormously increased influence with Kiba_

_Quest: Find Kiba_

_Reward: increased influence with Hana and Tsume Inuzuka._

'There are missions that go against each other? Okay, that's weird. So I guess that I can't take both of them. I don't know who Hana and Tsume are, so I guess that it's time to save the mutt.'

11:30

"I can't thank you enough man" Kiba said in a hushed tone of voice from Naruto's closet. He was nearly naked, only wearing a pair of boxers.

"Yeah, don't worry about it. Why are they chasing you anyways?" Naruto asked with wary eyes.

"There was a failure to communicate." Kiba said vaguely. Akamaru barked in agreement.

Naruto decided not to comment and began to shut the closet door. Just as it was about to close all the way, there was frantic knocking at the door. "Oh shit!" Kiba whispered.

Naruto opened up the closet and grabbed Akamaru roughly, then closed the door. "It's going to be fine!" Naruto yelled/whispered.

The knocking at the door intensified by the time that Naruto reached it. Opening it up got Naruto face to face with a teenage girl with an extremely irritated look on her face. She was wearing spandex shorts and a top that was covered by a partially zipped down ninja vest, she also had the Inuzuka defining characteristics of double fang marks on her cheeks and slightly pointed canines.

"Is Kiba here?" she asked gruffly.

"Uuuhh. No. Why? You looking for him?"

"His scent leads here."

Naruto drew attention to Akamaru, who was in his arms. "He shoved his dog on me, then took off."

She growled to herself. "I didn't think that he was so crafty as to split his scent on various paths."

"I wouldn't know about that. You want your dog back?" he said, pushing Akamaru forward, who did his best to squirm away from the enraged female.

"Akamaru is Kiba's dog. He's probably going to stop by soon to get him back though. If you'd do me a favor, when he does, knock him out or something and take him back to the Inuzuka compound."

"I… I don't know if I want to get involved in a clan dispute." Naruto said nervously.

"Well isn't it unfortunate that you did?" she said ominously before backing away from the door.

Naruto closed the door and walked to the half-open closet. Shoving Akamaru back to Kiba, Naruto said "You have two hours until I kick you out. Think up a plan or something, then leave. If you don't, I'm going to the Inuzuka compound to tell everyone where you are."

Kiba gave a thumbs up. "Cool."

_Quest Completed: Hide Kiba_

12:00

Forest of Death

_Sorry for the lack of notice kid, but I'm going to be on a mission for a few days._

_Lucky for you, I'm the best teacher in the whole goddamned world. I got you a few scrolls on trap setting and trap detection. Count yourself lucky, scrolls containing information on ninja techniques are hard to come by now a days and I just happened to have a friend who had a couple of these that I could borrow._

_I also set the forest chock full of some traps. Don't die._

_One last thing, if you tell anyone about how I like tea ceremonies, I will kill you._

_-Love, your awesome sensei._

Naruto dropped her scroll back where he picked it up and spawned a few clones. He handed off the bojutsu staff and scroll to one, and the scrolls containing the trap setting and detection to another few.

Looks like he had some more time to kill now that he didn't have access to Anko. His stomach grumbled loudly, reminding him that he hadn't had lunch yet. He'd figure out what to do after a few bowls at Ichiraku's.

12:15

_Random Encounter! Help Fu, Fujitsu, and Takkana find food_

_Reward: +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu control, +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu shape manipulation_

Naruto stopped in his tracks to stare at the pop up window that had come into being directly in front of him while he was walking down a crowded road. 'Who're Fu, Fujitsu, and Takkana? And why would helping them out give me better control over fuzzy-butt's chakra?'

Just as he finished that thought, there was a loud exclamation of hunger from directly behind him. "And I'm telling _you_ Takkana, I'm not eating Sushi." A voice that obviously belonged to a male rang out.

"Well it's a whole lot better than Katsudon." She replied belligerently. Naruto turned around to get a good look at them. The male, who he assumed was Fujitsu, was an average looking guy with glasses upon his head being the only thing that stood out. A female, who he assumed was Takkana, was as average looking as Fujitsu with a sash that contained vials of different fluids being the only object that stood out on her person. But there was another girl that was walking right behind them and remaining silent for the most part. Guessing that her name was Fu, she was dark skinned and wearing a white miniskirt with a white mid-cut halter top along with cut-off arm warmer sleeve things. She also had green hair and orange eyes. They all had the forehead protectors of a village that he hadn't seen before.

"Oi, you three. What are you doing here in Konoha?" Naruto said amicably, jumping into their conversation.

"Huh?" Fujitsu said distractedly. "Oh, we're here for the chunin exams."

"And we're hungry, but this guy won't man up and eat some sushi." Takkana said.

"It's disgusting." He retorted.

"Katsudon is what's disgusting."

"Katsudon is great!"

They continued to argue like that until Naruto had to interject again. "How about ramen?" he ventured. Getting them to eat at Ichiraku's would be like killing two birds with one stone.

They both shut their mouths in sync and slowly turned their heads to look at the other. "I could go for some ramen." Fujitsu stated.

"I don't see why not." Takkana said

"What about you?" Naruto asked Fu.

She clammed up and started to nervously murmur words incomprehensibly. Fujitsu and Takkana took notice of this and answered for her. "She'd love to." Fujitsu said.

Naruto nodded at this with an unsure expression on his face and bade them to follow him to the ramen place.

"I didn't know that Konoha shinobi were so hospitable." Fujitsu said in an attempt to make conversation.

"Oh yeah, we're all great here. Unless you meet up with a guy whose hair looks like a duck's ass, he's an asshole. Or a certain perverted scarecrow, he's useless for conversation. Or a couple of guys decked out fully in green, they're freaks. Or you meet up with a purple haired chick who loves dango, she's a psychopath. In fact, I think that I'm one of the very few sane people who live here. So count yourself lucky."

He chuckled somewhat nervously. "I'll keep that in mind. So what is this ramen place?"

"It's called Ichiraku's. Serves some of the best ramen around here. In fact I was on my way there when I bumped into you guys."

"Is it pricy?" Takkana asked.

"Not really."

They all continued their inane conversation up until they reached the small ramen stand. Ayame's and Teuchi's eyes widened in surprise at the face of their number one customer with his new friends. "Hey Naruto, did you bring some new customers?" Ayame asked cheerfully.

"Yup. This is Fujitsu, Takkana, and Fu." he gestured to each in turn.

"Well what can I get for you guys?" Teuchi asked amiably.

"Miso ramen" Naruto answered.

"Seafood ramen." Takkana answered.

"Uhhhh… chicken ramen." Fujitsu said.

"…Miso ramen." Fu stated after a little bit of deliberation

"I'll get right on it." Teuchi said, getting going on the noodles and broth.

Fujitsu and Takkana turned to each other and started conversing in somewhat argumentative tones. From his walk to Ichiraku, he came to the conclusion that they weren't aggressive, belligerent people. They just liked arguing with each other. It was kind of like seeing a married couple go back and forth. It could go on for hours at a time or seconds, but it didn't really matter because there was no actual aggression behind their words.

Deciding to leave them to their devices, he turned to Fu for conversation. "So what do you think of Konoha?" he asked.

"It's… big." She said slowly.

"Sure is. Your village isn't very large?"

"Nope. Not on this level. Not even close."

Naruto stared directly at her eyes, which unnerved her slightly. "Are you wearing contacts?" he asked.

"Uhhh… no. My orange eyes are genetic, I've been told."

"Been told?"

"Yeah, I'm an orphan." She said with an even tone of voice.

"Oh really? I'm an orphan too." Naruto said with a foxy grin.

"Seriously? What happened to them?"

"They died in the Kyuubi attack. What about yours?"

"They died in the Nanabi attack."

There was a sudden rise in the pitch of Takkana's and Fujitsu's argument, which died down quickly. "What's up with those two?" Naruto asked in a hushed tone.

She smirked in slight amusement. "They've always been like that. There's a common joke running around our village that those two are destined to get married and give each other aneurisms on their honeymoon." Naruto chuckled. He could definitely that happening.

"What about you?

"What about me?"

"Do you have any friends like that?"

She brushed some stray strands of hair out of her eyes. "No, not really. People in my village don't really like me?"

"Why not? You seem pretty cool."

Fu clammed up a little bit. "I, uhh… I can't tell you."

Well that was a worrying way of phrasing a remark. "Why not?"

"Because, uhmmm… I can't. But it's not something that's my fault." She said quickly.

After a few seconds of intense thinking, Naruto gave her the biggest smile that he had. Her situation sounded remarkably similar to his after all. He was fairly certain that she wasn't of any serious threat, and as such, didn't feel like it was a good idea to treat her as such. "It's fine if you don't want to tell me. I'm just a foreign shinobi in a big village. If fact, it'd be weird if you did want to tell me."

She smiled back at him. She opened her mouth to talk some more, but was interrupted by the arrival of her order.

"Eat up." Ayame said with a smile

_Random Encounter! Completed: Help Fu, Fujitsu, and Takkana find food._

00000000

1:00

_Random Encounter! Help Onoki get to kage administration._

_Reward: +5 politics, +10 elemental fire manipulation, +10 earth manipulation, +10 wind manipulation._

There was a large crowd gathering around a strange group of people. The group of people consisted of an androgynous teen, a large man with childish features and a big head, a large man with masculine features and a prominent jaw, and a small, elderly man who was crouching in pain and not capable of moving.

"See gramps, this is what happens when you try to walk around like that." The Andro-teen said chidingly.

"Kurotsuchi, don't tease your grandfather." The man with the prominent jaw remarked.

"I don't need my son to defend me." The old man said from the ground. Then he gasped in pain as he tried to (unsuccessfully) get up from his position on the ground.

Naruto quickly walked up to the motley crew. "Do you need help?" he asked in concern.

The old man tried to wave Naruto away with the excuse of "I don't need any of your help kid." But he was still having trouble even standing at that point.

Naruto's eyes slanted in annoyance. After doing a few handseals, his hands lit up with the Mystical Palm technique. Naruto knelt down behind the stubborn elderly and placed his palms in the middle of his back.

"What are you doing brat!" the old man said, trying to brush him off.

"I'm fucking healing you. Now shut up and take it with dignity you old fart!" Naruto said with a pissed off tone.

Onoki was so shocked at the attitude and tone of voice that Naruto held, that he didn't bother saying anything else. The same went for the rest of the three compatriots who were with him.

Naruto bit his lip. "Damnit." The Mystical Palm technique only went as far as the user was able to take it. Meaning that even with his large amounts of studying and hands-on training back at the hospital, he wasn't capable of setting a man's back straight using only chakra. The most he could do was to nullify the pain.

"Aaaaahhh…" Onoki sighed in relief at the contact of the medical chakra on his back. Once Naruto did all that he could do, he stood up and addressed him "I'm not able to set your back right, so you still won't be able to walk. I suggest that you see an actual chiropractor as opposed to a student who's practicing."

"I never asked to see you." He said vindictively.

Naruto quirked his eyebrow. "Oh really? Really now? Are you saying that you want me to unblock your nerve endings? Because blocking nerve endings in a particular area is hard and I don't think that you appreciate it very much."

Onoki said nothing.

"Where were you headed?" Naruto asked him.

"Administration." The man with the prominent jaw said. "Could you point us the way."

Naruto did him one better and spawned a clone, who placed the quarreling old man upon his back for transportation. "I don't need a trolley!" the old man shouted at the original.

"I don't know what a trolley is, but somehow I feel like you really do need it." Naruto said, starting to walk away.

Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi looked on in wonder at the kid who probably has the largest balls in the world to talk to the Tsuchikage like that. "Did that just happen?" Kurotsuchi asked her imposing opposite.

"…I think it did." Akatsuchi replied.

The andro-teen smirked and laughed a bit. "I can't believe it."

"Oi, you two. Get over here." Kitsuchi yelled back at them.

Onoki grumbled indistinctly in their general direction, still in a bad mood at being hefted around like luggage.

_Random Encounter! Completed: Help Onoki get to kage administration._

00000000

1:30

_Random Encounter! Find Bee_

_Reward: +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu control, +20 Jinchuuriki jutsu shape manipulation_

'What is up with all of these random encounters? And who's Bee?'

"Hey you." A voice languidly called to him. Naruto turned to face a dark-skinned kid his age who was wearing the standard Kumo fatigues and was sucking on a lollipop. "Have you seen a big black guy who was wearing sunglasses come around here? Yellow dreadlocks, only talks in rhymes, has a tattoo of two bison horns on his face."

Naruto sighed and created 20 shadow clones. "Fan out." Naruto said simply to them.

Omoi looked at the dispersing shadow clones nervously. "What's uhhh… what's going on with the clones?"

"Once one of them finds your sensei, it'll dispel and I'll know where it is."

Omoi looked uncomfortable at the notion. "You don't have to do that. I was just wondering if you've seen him."

"I haven't, but I will soon." Naruto said to him. "You here for the chunin exams too?"

Omoi nodded. "Mmhmm. Once we got here, my sensei took off. So now me and my team are looking for him."

"Are the chunin exams this big of a deal? It's still like 5 days away."

"Yeah… they usually are, but apparently this one's going to be different."

"Do you know how?"

"Nope. The only thing I know is that's supposed to be some experiment."

_Random Encounter! Completed: Find Bee._

"He's at a karaoke bar about 5 blocks away that way." Naruto said suddenly, pointing to the direction where Bee was. Omoi nodded and took off in that direction.

00000000

6:00

Naruto closed the door to his apartment behind him. No more quests to complete. No more random encounters to his knowledge. Just rest.

Something caught the corner of his eye. He looked at his ninja bag that was resting in the corner. It was bulging at the seams with what appeared to be a huge cookbook of some kind. Naruto groaned. 'I thought I was done with these sorts of things.'

Tugging off the bag from the book, he was able to read the front cover of it.

_The Anarchist's cookbook._

**AN/ thanks for tuning in once again.**

**The sensei's are away and the students will play. The chunin exams are going to be different as you could probably tell from the roster of different shinobi this time around.**

**Read and review. And as always, have a gentlemanly day**


	6. an experiment?

Chapter 6

_The anarchist's cookbook_

_Forging:_

_You have no skills in forging whatsoever_

_Tailoring:_

_You have no skills in tailoring whatsoever_

_Carpentry:_

_You have no skills in carpentry whatsoever_

_Cooking:_

_Eggs. Mastery level 10/50_

_Toast. Mastery level 23/50_

_Instant Ramen. Mastery level 50/50. Tap for mutation options_

_Pizza. Mastery level 1/50_

_Rice. Mastery level 5/50_

_Drinks from mix. Mastery level 45/50_

_Painting:_

_You have no skills in Painting whatsoever_

_Sculpting:_

_You have no skills in sculpting whatsoever_

The entirety of the anarchist's cookbook fit onto one page. Considering that the entire thing was about the size of a large cookbook, Naruto came to the conclusion he was intended to learn how to make a lot of things. The blonde, however, did not really care about how much he was supposed to learn at the moment, because he was too busy tapping on the mutation option for the Instant Ramen.

_*Congratulations, you have learned how to do a skill to the level where you have earned a mutation point for that particular skillset. Mutation points give you a variety of options to choose from. Whether they be new skills, new recipes, better and new interesting ways of crafting your object, and so on and so forth.*_

_Instant Ramen:_

_Description: it's not that hard, just pour some hot water into the cup and wait a few minutes. Tadaa! You have some very not nutritious food in your hands._

_Available mutations:_

_No time to wait. I'm a man of action_

_The polishing of the diamonds._

_New recipe! Homemade ramen_

Naruto tapped on each of the mutations to see what they did.

_No time to wait. I'm a man of action:_

_Removes the required 2 minute wait time for your instant ramen to cool_

_The polishing of the diamonds:_

_Your instant ramen now has the taste and nutrition of restaurant ramen_

_New recipe! Homemade ramen:_

_You are given the knowledge of how to create ramen from scratch. You know, Homemade meals go a long way *Wink*_

'Mutations are given when I reach the max level of a skill? Does this mean I can get a mutation from seduction, or is it only in the cookbook?' he could figure that out later. What mattered now was choosing the mutation. 'Getting _instant_ ramen is cool and all, but instant ramen that tastes like Ichiraku's is way better. Then again, if I learn how to make homemade ramen, I could get good at it enough to the point where I could get a cooler mutation.' Yup, that settled it, Naruto tapped on the New recipe! Option.

The cooking section of the book now read:

_Cooking:_

_Eggs. Mastery level 10/50_

_Toast. Mastery level 23/50_

_Instant Ramen. Mastery level 50/50. Mutation gained_

_Homemade Ramen. Mastery level 0/50._

_Pizza. Mastery level 1/50_

_Rice. Mastery level 5/50_

_Drinks from mix. Mastery level 45/50_

Naruto tried to conjure up Homemade ramen's required ingredients and recipe steps mentally, and was able to remember them immediately. It was just sort of… there now. Where there was none, there is some. 'This game sure is weird.' Naruto concluded.

'If I can make enough ramen, that should boost my Homemade ramen skill, right?' Naruto spawned a clone and instructed it with making as much ramen as it possibly could. It then ran directly out the door to get the necessary ingredients.

Naruto closed the book and set it on his kitchen table for future reference, then went to check on his stats in the Guidebook

_Base Stats:_

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP:1026/7000 Level 6_

_Chakra: 51_

_Chakra Control: 21_

_Wisdom: 41_

_Intelligence: 13_

_Charisma: 51_

_Flexibility: 11_

_Speed: 13_

_Strength: 16_

_Endurance: 41_

_Attribute Stats:_

_Ninjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 50/200_

_Elemental affinities:_

_[Wind 40/200 x2_

_Fire 5/200 x.5_

_Earth 10/200_

_Water 10/200_

_Lightning 0/200]_

_Genjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 9/200_

_Detection 9/200_

_Dispel 8/200_

_Taijutsu:_

_Learning rate 28/200_

_Pain tolerance 33/200_

_Form 35/200_

_Senjutsu:_

_Not available_

_Kenjutsu:_

_Learning rate 0/200_

_Form 0/200_

_Versatility 0/1000_

_close-range Weapons:_

_[Bojutsu 2/150]_

_Throwing weapons:_

_[Kunai and Shuriken 80/100_

_Senbon 2/150]_

_Jinchuuriki jutsu:_

_Control 42/1000_

_Shape manipulation 40/1000_

_Medical ninjutsu:_

_Learning rate: 12/200_

_Ability: 20/400 (May be limited by current chakra control)_

Naruto's eyes were mostly drawn to the newly made medical ninjutsu section in his guidebook. It hadn't been there before when Naruto went to check on it. Then again, whenever Naruto went to check on the guidebook, he never perused it for amusement. It was always just to check up on what he needed to check up on. There was also the addition to the kenjutsu section in the form of two new sections dubbed Close-range Weapons and Throwing Weapons that expanded to show Bojutsu, Kunai and Shuriken, and senbon. Naruto looked at the Kunai and Shuriken skill with squinted eyes. 'Okay, I _know_ that that skill wasn't there before. Why is it there now?' Naruto leaned his head back and sighed a long sigh. Although he was doing his best trying to cope with this thing, and he was learning a lot from his new sensei, he was also very confused by the entire situation that he was in and _really_ needed guidance. Guidance that was dangerous to obtain in his current situation.

Naruto looked at the clock. 6:15. Late enough to where he felt like it would be a waste of time to go out and train himself, but early enough to where he felt like he would be wasting time not doing anything.

Perhaps he should read something. Like a book on RPG's or something. He was stuck in one, so it would be for the best if he got some knowledge in how to prosper in this weird game world.

Well it wasn't a game world, not really. It was more like he was suddenly turned into the protagonist of a videogame while also retaining his self and his world. Kind of hard to categorize though.

Naruto had played some RPG's, but he didn't have the patience to strategize and thusly failed at almost every single one of them. Maybe he could ask for some advice from a gamer. But that would require him knowing a gamer first, so that plan was out the window.

Naruto pulled at his hair in frustration. He had so many options available to him, but they weren't available for him to use. Not if he didn't want people to start asking questions. Naruto let go of his hair and went to his room so he could check up on his money situation.

$4239. Compared to some of the prices that went on the market for large housing, the rate at which he got money would be far too little for him to ever think of buying anything of any actual value. If he was going to increase the rate at which he obtained capital, he was going to have to use more shadow clones to do more jobs. Of which, he couldn't do because he didn't want to overtax his mental faculties too much. There was also the fact that the mission directors didn't want to send him on any more chores because he was hogging them all from other teams. If any more missions were to be taken up, then the teams would have to go without. Not a good thing apparently.

Naruto eyed the Property Management and Wealth Proliferation binder cautiously. He had discarded it at first because it seemed far too complicated for him to get into, but it might be worth it to take another look at it. Picking it up, he set it down on a table and sat down in front of it to crack it open and look inside. If Naruto was going to figure out how the Elemental Nations Stock Exchange was going to work, he was going to have be comfortable to do it. So he spawned a shadow clone and instructed it to get him some lemonade.

Going past his current property (which was still none), he came once more to the Stock exchange and was once more assaulted with visual cues of utter nonsense. Deciding to get a look at it at a micro level at first, he tapped on a chart to see what it would do. It expanded and became much more detailed. It had a line that zigged and zagged up and down in a random and unpredictable manner. It appeared that the line was on the upward trend however. On a small button at the bottom of the page, there was an option that simply stated:

_Buy [0] Shares of KGS._

Naruto trepidatiously tapped the 0 and moved it upwards to 1. There was a small confirmation at the bottom of the screen that told him:

_Would you like to buy [1] shares of KGS for $11?_

_[yes] [no]_

Seeing as he was only sinking $11 dollars into the experiment, he more confidently tapped the yes option. A new text box popped up in the corner of the screen

_Your stock shares._

Naruto tapped on it and was met with another screen.

_Amount__Company__Trend_

_1 KGS 1.21 Upwards. Sell[0]_

Naruto experimentally tapped on the sell button and successfully sold the share that he bought not 30 seconds ago.

_You have sold [1] shares of KGS for $12._

'So wait… I buy something for less money, then I sell it for more money? That makes a lot more sense than I thought it would.' Naruto rubbed the palms of his hands together dubiously. These next 30 minutes would be fun and profitable, he reckoned.

30 minutes later.

The last 30 minutes were not fun and profitable for Naruto as it turned out. After realizing the base concepts of the stock exchange, he bought $2000 worth of stock from a company called IGS, which plummeted in value almost as soon as he bought it. After waiting for it to come back up for a few minutes, he decided to cut his losses and sold what he had, making him lose almost $1000. Experiencing why the stock market was such a risky venture was a good thing for Naruto overall, because it taught him to be far more careful with his money than he would have been. Since then, he carefully put his money towards stock that seemed less risky in nature.

The rest of the time was spent with him getting about $1000 back through various expenditures and profits. And after all that, he still didn't know what the stock market was. He just saw some buttons that bought things, then some buttons that sold them at a different (and hopefully higher) price.

Once he had all the money back that he lost, he decided to flip the paper onto the next page where there was a map of Konohagakure that had small bubbles dotted all around it. Tapping one, the bubble expanded and text popped up onto it.

_Hachiman's tailor and mending services._

_Cost: $2000_

_Description: a very small shop that caters to people's very basic clothing and mending needs._

_Unlocks: Tailoring services, Tailoring teaching, Tailor recipe's_

_Profit: $50/ day._

Naruto rose an eyebrow. 'Why would I buy something that cost $2000 and only gets me $50 a day?' he tapped on a different property.

_Luxury cinema_

_Cost: $1,500,000_

_Description: a cinema that caters to the needs of the upper class. All movie premiers in Konoha happen here, and draws famous actors and directors alike from around the world to try and get their movie placed here._

_Unlocks: Nothing_

_Profit: 100,000/ week. Fluctuates based on the movie market._

The gears in Naruto's head began to turn. 'So if I buy the small Tailoring place for $2000, and it gets me $50 every day. Then… it should get paid back in…like… 5 or 6 weeks. That's a long time, but it would get paid back eventually, and I can also learn more about tailoring. Though I'm not sure how much I would need tailoring… Whatever, shadow clones. Might as well learn it.' Naruto tapped the confirmation prompt on buying the tailor shop. It's not like he had much else to buy with his money.

After checking the other property bubbles, he realized that none of them were in his price range anymore.

Naruto leaned back and smiled. At least he sorted that piece of his life out.

00000000

The next day. Noon.

Naruto was dangling upside down from a rope trap that was attached to a tree. Both of his legs were caught in it. He could easily bend upwards and cut the rope, making him fall down to his safety, but he merely resigned himself to his fate and closed his eyes. His body ached. His head ached. His spirituality ached.

His body ached because of the gauntlet of traps that Anko was making him go through. His head ached because of the shadow clones that were popping every now and again. His spirituality ached due to the fact that he didn't know how to get Sakura to like him.

Even if he could feel himself rapidly improving as a shinobi because of this 'game' that he was placed into, if given the chance, he would go to his old life in a heartbeat. It was just easier and less confusing that way.

Anko landed on the branch that the rope was anchored to and peered down at her student with a sadistic smile. "Hey kid. What's up? Or I guess what's down in your position."

Naruto looked back up at her with a deadpan glare. "That joke was bad and you should feel bad."

Anko's kunai 'slipped' out of her trench coat pocket and landed on the knot that was holding the rope in place, severing it. Naruto fell to the ground rapidly and brought his arms up to brace himself to avoid crushing his head under his body weight.

Whelp. Now it looked like Naruto's body ached even more.

He managed to bring himself up to glare at her smiling visage. "Oops. I guess that my kunai fell out." Anko said, trying to provoke him.

Naruto stopped glaring at her and laid back onto the ground to look at the canopy with a contemplative look on his face. "Yeah, I guess that it did. You should probably secure your kunai more effectively." Naruto said flatly.

Anko frowned. From her limited interaction with the blonde, he always seemed eager to learn. Now he had the countenance of a person who had given up. After grabbing the kunai that hit the trunk, she chakra-hopped off the tree to look down onto his prone form. "You okay kid?"

Naruto took a while to answer. "… Have you ever been… confused? I don't mean like confused about a problem in math, I mean like… thoroughly confused about a lot of stuff in your life and you don't know how to talk to other people about it."

She smirked down at him. "I'm fairly certain that you just described puberty. What happened? Cream your bed? Find a ball hair? Crack your voice?" she said playfully.

Naruto lethargically waved her off. "Naw, Iruka-sensei already told me about all that stuff. I mean… so many things are happening to me right now. I'm confused and don't know who to talk to about it."

Anko's eyes lost their luster. She decided that the gauntlet could wait for the moment and laid down next to him, peering up at the canopy as well. "I, uh… I'm sure that you know about my past, right?"

"Nope." Naruto answered flatly. "Your friend Kurenai mentioned something about a guy named Orochimaru, but I didn't look into it."

"Why not?" Anko questioned.

"Because I'm not a nosy piece of shit."

Anko got a laugh out of that. "Kid, you're going to learn really quick that if you want to succeed in being a shinobi, you're going to have to do things that other people don't like."

"Like peering into their personal life and judging them for it?"

Anko took a bit to answer. "You should always know your friends like you know your enemies. Their weaknesses, their strengths, their hobbies, their likes and dislikes… those sorts of things."

"Why?"

"So if they ever betray you, you can use those things against them." Anko said evenly.

Naruto tore his eyes away from the canopy to give Anko a queer look. "So I shouldn't trust my friends?"

"… You shouldn't trust… people. Because no matter who they are, people let other people down."

"That's… pessimistic." Naruto stated.

She smirked. "Do you even know what that word means?"

Naruto huffed indignantly. "I know how to use it right. So what were you going to say?"

Anko was silent for a long time. "If you don't know about my past then I'll fill you in. When I was a genin, my sensei was a guy named Orochimaru. He was a great shinobi, and even eventually obtained the title of one of the 3 great ninjas of Konoha." Anko's tone turned into one of admiration. "You don't understand what he was like to me. I was an orphan and he was the only person that I knew that looked at me with any sort of levity. He trained me. He trained me well. I eventually became the best of my class and was a shoe in for promotion."

Anko's voice went sour. "Then at some point, he told me about this… _training trip._ I, being the stupid kid I was, agreed to go on it immediately."

Naruto glanced at her with some sympathy. "It wasn't a training trip, was it?"

She laughed darkly. "Not by a long shot kid. He took me out to this really secret place, and… experimented on me."

Naruto's eyes went wide with concern. "What?"

She growled. "Turns out that he was just a sick fuck who enjoyed experimenting on people to make 'leaps forward as human beings.' It wasn't a leap forward for me. That snake bastard put this weird sealing array on the nape of my neck. They call it the curse seal. It hurt like a motherfucker. Whenever I try to use it, I get so strong. Stronger than I've ever been. But there's a catch. It makes me act like someone I'm not. Someone that I hate."

She shook her head as if trying to rid her mind of those thoughts. "Anyways, when the ANBU that were sent to kill him found me, they sent me back home. The people were scared of me. I just… you don't know how he operates. He gets into people's heads and makes them do stuff that they would never ever do otherwise. He's charismatic like that. So the people were afraid of me and what I might do, what I'd never consciously do. It was a confusing time for me. I didn't have any friends anymore. I didn't have anybody that I could trust. I only had myself and my thoughts."

"That sounds… horrible."

She laughed humorously once again. "Yup it was kid. But you know what I did to stay sane?"

"What?"

"I found somebody that I could trust. Then I talked to her about it, and she listened to me. And then… I didn't feel so confused anymore. People are kind of like that. They help to give perspective."

"Didn't you just tell me not to trust other people?"

"I said to hold them at an arm's length away."

Naruto's eyes lit up with a renewed vigor. "Yeah, you're right. I just need to find someone that I can talk to. That's it."

Anko jumped up enthusiastically. "That's the spirit kid. Now get up, we're going to do some training!"

Naruto jumped up with her. "Yeah!"

00000000

Meanwhile.

Naruto's clone looked up from his map to the shop that he was standing in front of with unimpressed eyes. It was a dinky little thing, but it spoke of a pleasantness that could only be had from a family owned store. Naruto walked inside to find the cashier stand empty.

"Hello." Naruto called out. He dimly heard a slight rustling of clothe from the back before a teenager stepped into view. He seemed normal for the most part. Black hair that was flat on top and split multiple ways down the back, slightly hunched back, but his most distinguishing characteristics were his eyes. They were sour and grim, like dead fish eyes.

The teen looked at Naruto appraisingly. "You here for clothing alterations?"

Naruto looked at the teen in confusion before replying "Eh, no. I'm the new owner."

The teen's eyes widened fractionally. "What? Look kid, I don't have any time for games-"

"No, no. I'm the owner. Really! I just bought this place for $2000." Well this might be bad. Naruto had only bought the property on a piece of paper in a binder. This kid might not know and Naruto wouldn't be able to buy it

"But… you just… oh, you're a shinobi aren't you? An _adult_ by society's perspective. Uzumaki Naruto I presume."

Naruto mentally sighed in relief "Yeah. I just came by to check up on the business."

"Hmmm. Well my name's Hachiman Hikigaya. My dad just died and I'm not old enough to own a business, so this place went on sale."

"Oh, uhh… I'm sorry for your loss."

Hachiman waved him off. "Don't be. He was a dick. You own any other businesses?"

Naruto shook his head.

Hachiman sighed in annoyance. "So this is how it's going to work, after all the expenses are paid, the new materials, my wage, any unforeseen accidents or failures, you get the profit. Although that only amounts up to about $50 a day, it's your choice what you want to do with that money. You could put in your bank account, put it towards the store for renovations, or just… whatever floats your boat. I don't really care."

"Is that it? Isn't it more… intensive than that? Being the owner an all."

Hachiman shook his head. "Nope. My dad taught me how to finance the store and all before he kicked the bucket. So seeing as I'm the only employee, I'll be taking the role as manager. It'll be tough though, filling out orders that two people used to. So I'm probably going to hire someone as well."

"I could help." Naruto immediately offered.

Hachiman looked at him with a confuddled expression. "What? Do you even know how to sew, or do alterations, or to make custom clothes?"

Naruto shook his head to all accounts. "Nope. But I'm a fast learner. Plus I've been meaning to take up sewing."

"But… you're a shinobi. Don't you have other things that are supposed to take precedence?"

"Yeah. But I'm not really here right now, the original anyways. I'm a clone. Everything that I learn goes back to the original when I dispel. Pretty cool huh?" Naruto said with his foxy grin.

Hachiman backed away out of surprise. "You shinobi are so weird. Anyways, if I'm going to teach you how to sew, you're going to have to pay me and the store some extra money. If I'm teaching you, I can't be filling out orders. There are also things like the materials that you're going to waste if I teach you. You fine with that?"

Naruto nodded. He could get the money back when he was sufficiently trained in the tailor arts.

Hachiman leaned away from Naruto and cracked his vertebrae. When he was done stretching out, he said "We might as well get started then."

_Gained Hachiman Hikigaya as a teacher._

00000000

6:00

Naruto was walking back home whilst trying to heal himself through use of the Mystic Palm technique. He couldn't do things like stitch cuts together yet, but he could at the very least deaden pain and aches, something that he was doing a lot as of late.

Anko was a slave driver when it came to traps. She forced him to run through the forest of death at high speeds while identifying and getting out of the way of traps. That didn't happen often though, as she chased him in over and around the tree-line it was hard to not only identify cleverly concealed traps, but to also get out of the way in time to not get stuck in it.

Even through her unorthodox training methods, he managed to run through the gauntlet of traps up until she called it quits. By that time though, he had at least gotten to the point where he could identify and get past half the traps that he almost ran into. So there was that at least.

He was also the victim of a pounding headache, the source of which was probably rooted in the use of far too many shadow clones. Although he _was_ making good progress on cooking actual ramen and sewing the various stitches of clothing. Luckily he was also able to deaden the pain of a headache using medical ninjutsu.

Medical ninjutsu is just so awesome.

_Random Encounter! Help Mr. Higurashi carry his ingots to his forge_

_Rewards: increased influence with Mr. Higurashi, Forging +10_

Naruto stared at the pop-up with more than a little ire. 'What's an ingot?' there was a sound of labored grunting directly towards on Naruto's side. Looking over, he saw a large and imposing man weighed down by load that was obviously too large for him to carry.

Naruto walked up to him and asked "Do you need help with that?"

The heavily perspiring man barely moved his head to acknowledge Naruto's presence. "You wouldn't be able to help." He said gruffly.

Naruto's eyes slanted in annoyance. 'Why does everyone think that I can't help?' the load that the man was carrying was spread across multiple bags that were bulging outwards at strange angles. "Oh come on. I'm stronger than I look." Naruto said persuasively.

Higurashi's eyes flickered to Naruto's form. "Okay." He said simply, before offloading a bag onto Naruto.

"OOOF." That bag hit him like a ton of rocks hits the ground after being dropped from a freight train. Needless to say, it didn't feel good. "What's- *grunts* in here? *grunts* shit 'n bricks?"

Relieved slightly of his load, the man was capable of slightly better motor control and thusly capable of Naruto more than a glance. "Iron."

"Iron? So you're a forger?" Made sense considering that Naruto got a boost in forging from him.

"Forger? Doesn't exist. I'm a blacksmith." Higurashi said before moving forwards, expecting Naruto to follow.

Getting a good grip on the bag, Naruto ambled forward. "Why don't you use a wheelbarrow *grunts* or something?"

"I did have a wheelbarrow. It broke." Higurashi seemed to speak in clipped, impersonal phrases. Giving the air of a very pragmatic man.

"How did you manage that?"

Naruto's incessant questioning of Higurashi seemed to draw his ire, but he humored Naruto nonetheless. "The load was too heavy."

"Why did you have to take it all in one trip?"

"I thought it could fit."

"But it couldn't."

The hulking man refused to answer. Time passed a while for them both, hefting the large bags full of iron was rather hard work after all. Soon however, Higurashi initiated conversation. "You a ninja?"

"Yeah, just graduated this year."

"Do you know my daughter? Her name's Tenten, she graduated a year ahead of you."

"Her name… does sound familiar, but I can't place it."

He grunted in affirmation. "She used to help me out around the forge, but now that she's a ninja, she doesn't have the time."

"I could help you out." Naruto offered immediately.

He looked at Naruto with the same derision that Hachiman seemed to employ. "Do you smith?"

"No, but I'm a fast learner."

Higurashi seemed to consider it before replying "I can't use someone who doesn't know how to forge."

"Then teach me." This was good. If Naruto could get this guy to teach him how to forge, then he could make all sorts of cool ninja stuff.

"It costs time to teach. Time is worth a lot of money in the blacksmithing industry."

"How much does it cost to learn?"

Higurashi stayed quiet for a while so he could do the math in his head. "About… $50 an hour."

"Cool. When should I come by?"

"You have that spending money?"

Naruto grinned as wide as he could while he was under the weight of the bag of ingots. "What do you think I am? I'm a ninja. I get paid good."

"Wrong. You get paid well."

"Tomato Tomahto."

He grumbled a little bit before replying "Come by my forge in the mornings."

_Gained Mr. Higurashi as a teacher._

Naruto deadpanned. "That's cool and all, but where is it?"

He pointed to a shop that they were approaching. The sign read 'Higurashi weapon emporium.'

00000000

Meanwhile.

"I take it you've had a pleasant trip so far." The aging Hokage asked the man situated directly in front of him.

"Where's everyone else?" He asked bluntly. He was a rather non-descript man. Rusty red hair and a black ninja suit with a canister of an unknown nature strapped to his waist. This man was the Fourth Kazekage.

The older man sighed and started shuffling his notes to get them straightened out. "Onoki arrive here yesterday. Ai is due to arrive here tomorrow, and I've gotten no word from either the rebel leader of the kekai genkai faction, nor the actual mizukage himself.

The man seemed satisfied with the answer given. "So tell me about this grand experiment that you've planned out."

**AN/ Sooo… I'm not sure how many of you guys noticed, but I had basic mathematical flaws in my chapters previous to this one. I've got it all sorted out, don't worry, but I'm somewhat surprised that it took 5 chapters for someone to point this out.**

**Many thanks to Gremlin Jack. If it wasn't for him, I would still be operating under a veil of ignorance. Not only that, but he made a stat sheet for this story, so he's a cool guy. Why don't you check his page out? Cool guys deserve attention.**

**Other than that, thanks to the many people who have given me ideas on the crafting system.**

**Oh, and a digital cookie to whoever knows who the 8-man is.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	7. a Prepping for the test

Chapter 7

Several days later.

Naruto looked at the man on the ground with no small amount of apprehension in his eyes. The man had a scrawny build, wispy little tufts of hair poking out of his scalp, and horribly ugly facial features. These features were not helped by the large amount of blunt force trauma applied to it. He was also tied up and leaning against one of the large trees that propagated the forest of death.

"Who is this guy?" Naruto asked without tearing his eyes away from him.

Anko walked over and grabbed the man by his hair to that Naruto could get a better look at his face. "This man," she said almost gleefully. "Is Kanzaku Kinu." Anko paused to let Naruto speak

"What's he doing here?"

"Excellent question! Zaku here," she pulled the hair harder, making him moan in pain. "Is responsible for 12 accounts of rape and 14 accounts of murder. The 14 murders include the 12 rapes along with the 2 attempted, but not accomplished rapes."

Naruto's eyes grew wide with concern. "What the fuck?! Why's he here?"

"Another excellent question! See, shithead here is going on the chop and block tomorrow. So I pulled some strings in the T&I department to see if I could get him to help with your education."

Naruto became apprehensive once more. "What education?"

"Field medicine of course!" she responded gleefully. "You're going into medical ninjutsu and that's great. But no amount of medical ninjutsu is going to teach you how to relocate a shoulder or amputate a limb."

Naruto was slightly slow to the uptake. "How's he going to help me with that?"

"You are just so full of fantastic questions today aren't you?" she then pulled a kunai out of her coat pocket and severed the man's bonding. He slumped forward in a heap and made no attempt to try and flee. Even though he was semi-conscious, he seemed incapable of moving. After releasing him, she grabbed his arm and lifted it behind his back, then jerked it quickly, making an audible _popping_ sound.

The man started to struggle fitfully, but was unable to break out of her hold. Naruto looked at the scene in horror. "What are you doing!?" he almost shouted out.

"I'm going to teach you the most expedient way of relocating a shoulder possible. By relocating a shoulder."

"No. No, I refuse. Fuck no." Naruto said with great gesticulations.

Anko leveled a confused glare. "What's your problem?"

"That's… that's just not right. It's immoral!"

She seemed to get a laugh out of that. "Immoral? We're ninja! Immorality is our strong suit."

"It's still not right to torture a man without any… without any… what was it called? Just cause! It's not right to torture a man without any just cause."

"Yeah, well it's not right to rape and murder callously is it? But this guy doesn't seem to give any _fucks_." At the last word, she twisted his arm to the side a little bit more, drawing screams and whimpers from the pitiful man.

"But-"

"Kid." She said humorlessly for the first since the day. "You can see this as either torturing a helpless man, giving out divine retribution, or just taking advantage of a good opportunity to learn medicine the best way possible."

Seeing that Naruto still looked unconvinced, she let the arm drop to the floor only to grab the opposite one. "If only there were _someone_" she twisted the arm to the side, dislocating it like the other one "who knew how to relocate a shoulder. Isn't it just a fucking _shame_?" she twisted the arm the side once more. At this point, the man was frothing at the mouth in, dull with pain.

Naruto looked at the man for an intense while. He still thought it was wrong to torture people for the sake of making them suffer, but then again the man _did_ commit reprehensible and inhumane acts. And it _was_ always far more informative to work on actual people when learning how to heal them, his time in the hospital had taught him that. After a bit more of mental deliberations, he finally said "Okay, where do we start?"

Anko put up a cruel smile. "Lesson one: joints!"

00000000

Naruto and Hachiman were working diligently on their respective projects. Naruto was attempting to sew a hole on a shirt closed while Hachiman was working on a custom dress for some sort of high school prom.

As a rule, custom made articles of clothing were far more expensive to make and always took much longer. But considering that they were almost always unique and individual, there was a lot of commodity for them. Currently, the sour-faced teen was sewing the shoulders on with a very concentrated look on his face.

Luckily for Naruto, Hikigaya had a tailoring teaching level of 3x, so under his tutelage, Naruto was able to pick up the basics of tailoring rather quickly. Unluckily for him, tailoring seemed to have a steep slope when it came to learning curves. It also required a shit ton of patience to make good articles of clothing, something that Naruto didn't have in spades at the moment. That being said, he was able to patch up clothes rather nicely at that point after having several days of practice under his belt, meaning that Hikigaya could work on the things needed working on while Naruto learned and practiced on his own.

It was an intense environment, one that didn't exactly give much incentive to create small talk. Even though, Naruto considered himself more adept at sewing with a calm hand when he was talking. As they talked, Naruto learned that Hikigaya had a very different perspective of how the world works. It was pessimistic, but still rooted in reality. He even had stories about how his world-view had become the way that it was.

Hikigaya was also really good for bouncing ideas off of. Because of his background as a civilian who didn't really want much to do with the shinobi lifestyle, he took most of what Naruto said and asked as normal shinobi things.

Things like 'How does the stock market work?' or 'If your life suddenly turned into a JRPG, what would you spend the most time on?'

Naruto suddenly winced in pain and drew his hand hastily away from the shirt he was mending. Looking at his finger, he found that he had accidentally pricked it. A quick healing jutsu later and the wound had closed up. Hikigaya glanced at the process with a disinterested eye.

"I still find it weird that you shinobi can do those kinds of things." He muttered out.

Naruto sucked off the blood that had managed to gather on his finger before he closed the puncture. His medical education had been proceeding well, as of yet, he could heal bruises, small cuts, disinfect wounds, and numb pain. Nothing that would make him any force to reckoned with in terms of medical superiority, but at least he could get rid of annoying ailments. Like headaches. He had been getting a lot of headaches recently, so healing jutsu was like a godsend to him.

"You live in Konoha. Don't you see these things regularly?"

"Other than the odd guy jumping on roofs, nope."

"Well I guess that we're doing our jobs right then." Naruto concluded. After making sure that there was no more blood on his hand, he went back to work on the shirt.

They proceeded like that for a while until Hachiman dusted off the dress that he was working on and stepped back to get a good view of it. From his understanding, the dress was exactly what this chick wanted. So he had every reason to be proud of it.

Naruto decided to ask him a question seeing as he was done with the intense concentration. "Hey Hachiman?"

He grunted an affirmative.

"Can you teach me how to run a business?"

Hikigaya gave him a queer look. "I only know how to run a small tailor shop, that's it. You'd have more luck enrolling in a class in the academy, especially with your shadow clone thing."

"But I graduated the academy already."

"The academy is comprised of more things than just a place to teach kids how to kill each other. There are also different adult-level classes, like business management, or marketing, or computer science."

"Computer science?"

"A relatively new field from my understanding… why do you want to do this anyway?"

"Learn how to run a business?"

"No-" Hachiman seemed to be a loss for words. Gesturing wildly to his surroundings, he said "Why did you want to buy a small tailor shop that has almost no revenue? Even if you say that you bought it to take up tailoring, I can't dismiss this as just another 'ninja quirk'"

"I don't know… there was something to learn, so I decided to learn it."

"But why do you_ want_ to learn?"

"So I can become stronger."

"Why do you want to become stronger?"

"So I can achieve my dream of becoming hokage." Naruto said resolutely.

"Naruto, hard work betrays none, but dreams betray many. Working hard alone doesn't assure you that you'll achieve your dreams. Actually there are more cases where you don't. Even so, working hard and achieving something is some consolation at least. Just remember that."

"Who said that?" Naruto asked.

"I did… we should probably get back to work."

Naruto nodded in agreement

00000000

CLANG

CLANG

CLANG

Naruto lifted the tongs that held the crooked piece of metal up to his eye. He was trying his hardest to make a serviceable kunai, but it very difficult for him to accurately gauge when and where the metal was going to be displaced once he hit the super-heated ingot with his hammer. There was also the varying levels of strength to be used for different desired results with shaping the iron in the desired fashion.

Naruto lowered the tongs back to the anvil and started to hit away at it once more. This wasn't his first experience with trying to make a kunai either. The crooked piece of metal that Naruto was clanging away at was attempt number 3. That being said, he did learn several valuable blacksmithing methods on the first two attempts.

One being to be careful where you slam your hammer. He learned this the hard way when he accidentally hit his arm with the hammer and was dispelled. Filling up the forge with clone smoke was hard to explain away to the hulking Higurashi.

Another was not to leave it in the furnace for too long, else it would be reduced to a puddle of iron.

CLANG

CLANG

CLANG

Naruto brought the piece of iron up to inspection once more. It was beginning to take the… rough form of a throwing knife. He was getting better at least.

"Hey Naruto." A voice said from behind him. Turning around, he was met with the sight of Tenten Higurashi. The weapons expert from team Gai.

"Hey Tenten, what's up?"

"Nothing really. I decided to end my training a bit early today and check up on you in the forge."

"Err, thanks I guess. So how does it look?" Naruto asked in reference to his 'kunai.'

She walked over closer to get a good look at the 'kunai.' After giving a minute of silent appraisal, she said "It needs a bit of work."

"Hehe, you've got that right… I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. Your dad taught me how to shape the metal and all that, but I just can't seem to get it right."

She nodded. They had met on his first day in the forge, after the first bit of confusion and introductions they had hit it off rather well. Unlike the other females in his life, she seemed normal at least on the surface level. Tenten was also pretty good to talk to. To him, she seemed honest, if a little bit blunt, and also had a similar sense of humor. Needless to say, within the first few days of interaction, they had become rather fond of one another.

"It's easy, you just have to hit it the right way." Tenten said cheerfully.

Naruto sweatdropped. "Wow, that's really descriptive of you. I know exactly what to do now. You've been such a great help." He said with large amounts of sarcasm.

She giggled a bit. "You don't have to be an asshole about it. Here, let me show you how it's done." Tenten then grabbed his hands in hers and tucked him to her torso. She lowered his hands back down to the anvil and peered over his scruffy head of hair to see what she was doing. Raising her hand which supported Naruto's hand which held onto the hammer, she lowered it down on the piece of metal repeatedly.

Naruto blushed slightly under her sudden physical contact, but allowed it nonetheless. Getting a good feel for the force required to use on the kunai, he soon started using his own force instead of hers. After a few minutes of this, Tenten was merely guiding Naruto's hands as they hit the kunai.

"You also have to be careful about how you hold the iron with the tongs. Shaping metal is more than just hitting it right, you have to know at what angle to hit it too." She began twisting and turning the metal and showed him the effects of the hammer hitting it in different places. It was even starting to look like an actual kunai.

"Hey! This is awesome! Let me try by myself for a bit." Naruto said excitedly.

Tenten let go of him and watched as started to hammer the kunai into shape. She winced every so often as he made a mistake, but the piece of metal was undoubtedly becoming a kunai.

Once he felt like he hammered it into shape, he brought up the kunai for inspection and dunked it into the heat treating oil that was on standby.

Taking off the heavy apron, he used the inside to wipe the sweat off of his face. It really gathered in large quantities when working in a forge.

"So what are you going to do to celebrate?" Tenten asked.

Naruto brought his hands above his head and stretched out his body some. "I don't know. I still need to sharpen it and stuff."

"But you did the hardest part of it. I think that's grounds for a little bit of celebrating."

"Oh? What were you thinking of for a celebration then?"

Tenten put a finger to her chin and started to feign deep thinking. "I know! Why don't we get some lunch?"

Naruto nodded at that. "Okay. Where do you want to go?"

"There's this really great restaurant just across the street. But I need to get changed first." Her clothes that she had on were her training clothes, which were still covered in a bit of sweat and grass stains.

"Cool, I should probably get changed too." Ever since his first day when he accidentally soaked his clothes in sweat, he had been bringing over two sets of clothes.

Tenten walked out of the forge, which was in the very back of the domicile, and into the main house, which took up the middle part of the domicile. The front part of their building was the store that the Higurashi family operated.

Naruto walked out after her and into the store bathroom while she took to the upper floor of the house, no doubt to get changed in her room.

When they were both ready and smelling slightly less of sweat, blood, and grass, they walked out of the store front, changing the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.

Tenten led him to the restaurant that was, literally, just across the street from the store. It was a sushi place that made extremely good food if Tenten's comments were anything to go by.

They sat directly next the conveyor belt that the sushi filed down on. The small plates all had a color that corresponded to their price and when they would be ready to pay, all the waiter had to do was to count up the total from the plates on the table.

The sushi was as good as Tenten had led to believe. Well cut pieces of choice fish meat in their various forms all slid down the conveyor belt. With Naruto's newfound fascination with blacksmithing, small talk was easy to come up with.

They talked about the different materials and what they would best used for weapon-wise. There were also apparently different techniques that one used when working with different types of metals. Iron, for example, was on the softer side of metals, making it easy to shape and mold, but it wouldn't stand up to the abuse of being a sword, so they were best utilized in kunai and shuriken. Steel however, was harder to shape, but far more resilient, making it the best material for things like swords. There were also different alloys that had varying qualities to them, but Tenten didn't know much about those herself, so she didn't go much into it.

A cloud jonin opened up the door to the place and sat down opposite them. She was taller than the average female and had long blond hair that was corded all the way down to her back. This seemed to remind Tenten of something.

"So are you going to enter the chunin exams?" she asked.

Naruto swallowed the piece of raw tuna in his mouth before saying "I think so. My team hasn't really talked about it much. I'm going to show up and hope that they do too."

"You sure? I heard that this chunin exam is going to be harder than the average one."

"How do you know that?"

"Well for starters, there are about twice as many foreign shinobi in Konoha at the moment than there has ever been on any other exam."

"Really? How do you know?"

"Gai told me and the rest of the team."

"Anything else?"

"Not much, but it's all really foreboding."

The cloud jonin decided to enter their conversation. "You two shouldn't enter. It's going to be deadlier this year."

"Who are you?" Tenten asked, affronted.

"Nobody really" she said through a munch of raw fish. "But I do know that this year is going to harder for you adorable little kittens. Seeing kittens going off to the grinder isn't really amusing to me."

Just as she finished that statement, another Naruto clone opened the door and spotted the cloud jonin immediately. Walking over to her, he asked "You Yugito Nii?"

Dumbly, she nodded while looking back and forth between the two Naruto's. Once he got confirmation of her identity, he poofed away in a puff of smoke. She gave the Naruto situated opposite her a hard stare. "You know the shadow clone technique?"

"What's the shadow clone technique?" Tenten asked, just as dumbfounded as Yugito.

"Kind of like the regular clone, only solid." Naruto said simplistically. "But more importantly, why would I need to be looking for you?" Naruto asked the now dubbed Yugito. The memories that he received from the clone were still a little bit fuzzy.

"I don't know. I was just in the mood for some sushi."

The door slammed open and a large, extremely muscular man entered the restaurant. "YUGITO!" he screamed in an annoying voice.

She winced at the sound of the shrill scream. "What?!"

"You can't just wander off on your own!"

"I didn't. I told you that I was going to go get sushi."

He looked like was just about ready to explode. "Then wait for me to respond!"

"You always take way too long to respond!"

Naruto and Tenten looked at this 'conversation' go on back and forth between the two with semi-interested eyes. "Soo… the kunai should be ready for sharpening, right?"

Tenten nodded, unable to tear her eyes away from the screaming match going on between the two foreign shinobi. "Is this what it looks like when couples fight?"

Even over the screaming, the two cloud shinobi were somehow capable of hearing that off-hand remark. "How do we even look like a couple?" Yugito asked.

"I do not start relations with my underlings." The man said.

Tenten grinned at their responses. "Okay, whatever you say. Come on Naruto, we have to polish your kunai."

Perhaps those were poor choice of words on her part, because both of the foreign ninja blanched at her response. When Tenten and Naruto had paid for their meal and left the store, Ai said "They just start doing it younger and younger these days, huh?"

00000000

Afternoon-Evening

Naruto's (The real Naruto) face was a dull green. Walking back to his house was a chore for him that he found difficult to accomplish in the state of nausea that he was in. Anko is a sadist, he decided for finally for himself, no doubt about it now. After learning how to reset jointed bones, she went on to show him how to sew various wounds closed, ending with opening a gash on the man's abdomen.

Even if the man was a rapist and a murderer, Naruto took solace in the fact that he didn't get joy from watching him writhe in pain. He finally lost his conscious somewhere around the third lesson, for which Naruto was grateful. He didn't think he would be able to go through with immolating wounds closed when he was looking at the man in the eyes.

Naruto finally gave up and hurled chunks in the bushes when she went on to the fourth lesson, which was amputating pieces of the body that had undergone damage too severe to keep a hold of.

Throughout all of that, she didn't seem uncomfortable in the slightest, even going so far as to laugh at the more extreme parts of her lesson.

Scary indeed.

Well, at least he got some very informative training in field medicine

Either way, he was going to need to get new ninja items for the chunin exams taking place tomorrow, but that would be done in the morning. Not when he could barely walk.

Somehow, he finally made to his house, where he plopped back down on his bed and went through his stats again. They read thusly:

_Base Stats:_

_Naruto Uzumaki: EXP:4329/7000 Level 6_

_Chakra: 51_

_Chakra Control: 21_

_Wisdom: 41_

_Intelligence: 13_

_Charisma: 51_

_Flexibility: 11_

_Speed: 13_

_Strength: 16_

_Endurance: 41_

_Attribute Stats:_

_Ninjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 50/200_

_Elemental affinities:_

_[Wind 40/200 x2_

_Fire 5/200 x.5_

_Earth 10/200_

_Water 10/200_

_Lightning 0/200]_

_Genjutsu__:_

_Learning rate 9/200_

_Detection 9/200_

_Dispel 8/200_

_Taijutsu:_

_Learning rate 28/200_

_Pain tolerance 33/200_

_Form 35/200_

_Senjutsu:_

_Not available_

_Kenjutsu:_

_Learning rate 1/200_

_Form 1/200_

_Versatility 2/1000_

_close-range Weapons:_

_[Bojutsu 20/150]_

_Throwing weapons:_

_[Kunai and Shuriken 80/100_

_Senbon 20/150]_

_Jinchuuriki jutsu:_

_Control 62/1000_

_Shape manipulation 60/1000_

_Medical ninjutsu:_

_Learning rate: 30/200_

_Ability: 40/400 (May be limited by current chakra control)_

_Miscellaneous: __*Only stats of note will be shown*_

_Trap laying 30/50_

_Trap detection 30/50_

_Poison resistance 5/50_

_Seduction 35/50_

_Gardening 10/50_

_Tailoring 15/50_

_Forging 15/50_

_Field medicine 35/50_

_Poison identification and synthesizing 15/50_

_Medicinal identification and synthesizing 10/50_

_Teaching 10/50_

_Politics__ 5/50_

He hadn't progressed as far or as fast in trap laying and detection as he had in seduction, so it took up more time than he wanted to and he wasn't able to move onto his other desired options like lying or taijutsu.

At least his bo-staff form and senbon throwing was going good too. Well, even the scroll said that senbon were fairly useless for throwing unless you were accurate enough with them that you could intentionally hit weak spots on the human body. With his bo-staff and senbon, he felt like his battle prowess had grown already in leaps and bounds than what it had before.

He had also noticed that there weren't any quests available ever since he finished the first slew, and the first Random Encounter! that he had received since a few days ago was finding that Yugito chick and directing Ai to her. It was a good thing that the shadow clone that was practicing his cooking was out getting ingredients at the time, else he might have missed it.

Speaking of cooking, he got up and walked over to the kitchen, of which could use a proper cleaning, and opened up the recipe guide.

_The anarchist's cookbook_

_Forging:_

_Kunai. Mastery level 20/50_

_Shuriken. Mastery level 10/50_

_Tailoring:_

_Repair. Mastery level 35/50_

_Basic Shirt. Mastery level 5/50_

_Basic Pants. Mastery level 5/50_

_Carpentry:_

_You have no skills in carpentry whatsoever_

_Cooking:_

_Eggs. Mastery level 15/50_

_Toast. Mastery level 33/50_

_Instant Ramen. Mastery level 50/50. Mutation gained_

_Homemade Ramen. Mastery level 50/50. Mutation gained_

_Pork Ramen. Mastery level 10/50_

_Beef Ramen. Mastery level 10/50_

_Shrimp Ramen. Mastery level 10/50_

_Chicken Ramen. Mastery level 10/50_

_Vegetarian Ramen. Mastery level 10/50_

_Pizza. Mastery level 12/50_

_Rice. Mastery level 35/50_

_Drinks from mix. Mastery level 45/50_

_Painting:_

_You have no skills in painting whatsoever_

_Sculpting:_

_You have no skills in sculpting whatsoever_

Yesterday, he had gotten another mutation from mastering the making of homemade ramen. The only option, however, was getting 5 new recipe's that were more specialized than the first one. It wasn't like he was complaining though. More ramen means better ramen.

After that, Naruto flopped back down on his bed and did a quick healing jutsu for his growing headache, then tried to go back to sleep.

Oh wait, he had to sign himself up for that business class.

Whatever, he could do that after he aces the chunin exams tomorrow.

**AN/ Tell me who you think the teacher for the class is going to be.**

**It's going to be another cameo, but this time their roles will be extremely similar, unlike the 8-man being a tailor.**

**I'm going to be doing this for his teachers that teach him stuff that don't actually take place in the Naruto-verse. i.e. there is no business teacher, so I'm going to import one.**

**Read and Review**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


	8. a first exam

Chapter 8

Naruto clutched at his head in pain. That was the first thing that he remembered feeling when he opened his eyes to the new day. Pain.

He tried to go through the handseals to make a Mystical Palm generate, but his concentration lapsed and he wasn't able complete it. Naruto went through those efforts several times before it actually paid off. He then brought the hand up to his head as fast as he could and numbed the pain.

"Aaaaaahhhhh." Naruto sighed in relief. These headaches were definitely getting worse and worse. Maybe he should cool it with the shadow clones for a bit.

It was the chunin exam day, so he would probably be forgiven if he didn't have any of his clones go through his daily routine for today. Looking over to the clock on his bedside table, he noticed that it wasn't the time that he set it ring off on. No, it was much later.

Naruto's eyes grew wide in concern. At that rate, he was going to be late. Very late.

"OH SHIT!" Naruto screamed. He got up and threw on his clothes as fast as he could, put a piece of bread in his mouth, and ran out the door as quick as possible. He'd eat the bread when he got there.

It was around noon-ish when Naruto took to the rooftops and sped to the academy. His eyes were glued to the ground, looking for any sign of either Sasuke or Sakura. He was so busy doing so that he didn't notice the special jonin directly in front of him.

"OOF." Naruto impacted the person with as much momentum that a 13 year old genin going about 30 mph could. It felt like he ran into a brick wall.

"What the- Look where you're going…" Mitarashi Anko trailed off as she realized who it was that impacted her. Her face morphed into one of annoyance into one of surprise and joviality. "Hey kid! I was looking for you! Fancy meeting you here."

Naruto groaned and picked himself up from the ground where he laid upon. "Hey Anko-sensei." He replied while groaning "You're really solid, you know that?"

She grinned dangerously at that remark "I'll try to take that as a compliment you damn brat."

Naruto looked around the rooftop for a second. He'd lost his bread somewhere in between the time of hitting Anko to hitting the ground. "Anyway, why did you want to meet me?"

Anko brought out a package that had been securely inside her trench coat until then. It was a rather unoffending package, wrapped in brown and not in a box.

"What is it?" Naruto asked. "I'm going to be late for the chunin exam."

"The chunin exam? Oh that's probably going to take a bit longer to set up than what the meet-up time said it was going to be. There are a lot of people after all."

Naruto groaned. "Does this mean that I could have gotten breakfast?"

"I don't care, now just open the damn thing up."

Naruto took the package with great trepidation, then shook it to make sure that nothing was live in there. Never hurt to check with Anko. After deciding that it was probably an actual gift, he tore open the construction paper that constituted its packaging and took out what was inside. It was a black foldable piece of leather that bulged with instruments. After looking up to make sure that it wasn't anything dangerous (even by ninja standards) and getting a nod in return, he unfolded the leather to see several items that he recognized from his crash course in field medicine with Anko. The largest of which was a small hand-axe, used to hack off limbs that had to be discarded due to injury.

"I can use these?" Naruto asked in reverence. He had never gotten such a great gift as this from someone before.

Anko grinned smugly to herself. "Nah. Those are for keeps. Consider it a gift for not dying from my training so far."

Naruto's eyes widened in disbelief. "Really?" he asked quietly.

"Really."

"Really, really?!" Naruto asked excitedly.

"Really, really!" Anko said in return. She was getting a kick from seeing him so happy from such a simple gesture.

He crashed into her torso to give an almost bone-crushing hug to his ever so kind instructor. "Thanks Anko!" he yelled out, although it was stifled somewhat from being directed inwards to her ribcage. She stood there, stock still with arms dangling to her sides uselessly. Anko wasn't very accustomed to getting hugs, so she awkwardly wrapped her arms around her energetic student. Anko definitely did not excel at shows of physical contact, but he didn't seem to mind in the slightest and continued to squeeze her midsection.

"Naruto?" a voice called from down below him.

Naruto detached himself from Anko's midsection to look down on the street below. There were the confused faces of Sakura and Sasuke looking back up.

"Hey guys." Naruto called from above. "Thanks again sensei!" He said before jumping off the building to meet up with his teammates.

She shook the shocked look of off her face before smirking once again. "Hehe, fucking brat."

Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto all started walking in the direction of the academy. "So apparently the exam is going to be delayed because there's so many people." Naruto stated.

"We know, dobe. There's too many people for it not to."

"More importantly" Sakura interjected. "Who was that chick that you were hugging?"

"She was my sensei!" Naruto exclaimed cheerfully "And she got me this really cool thing!" Naruto unfurled the wrapped piece of leather and showed the both of them its contents.

A moment of silence passed before Sakura asked "What is it?"

"It's a field medicine kit. Can't you tell? There's the hand-axe, the suture kit, the immolating rod, the anti-infection cream-"

"Why do you have it?" Sasuke interrupted. "Or I guess, why are you so excited to have it?"

"Because… it's useful, and… I don't know. It's a gift."

"And this makes you happy enough to hug her?" Sakura asked

"Well… yeah. It's the coolest gift I've ever gotten."

Sakura looked at him with concerned eyes. 'A field medicine kit is the coolest present that he's ever gotten?'

Naruto didn't notice her look because something else caught his attention. "Hey Fu!" He cried out. Sakura looked in the direction that he shouted and was waving towards and saw a green haired Taki kunoichi along with her teammates.

Before she could enquire as to who they were, Naruto shot off to them to make conversation. Sakura looked at Sasuke, but he seemed to be taking the new development in stride.

Walking up to them, she noticed that they seemed to be rather acquainted with one another. They were already talking amiably with one another and Naruto was making great gesticulations, probably to emphasize a point or something. The two teammates of the green haired girl were joining in on the conversation, but the green haired girl herself seemed detached from them altogether.

"Hey Naruto, who are they?" Sakura asked as pleasantly as she could. If they were to be competing for something, then it was probably a good idea to get on their good side.

"These are Takkana, Fujitsu, and Fu." Naruto said, gesturing the team from Taki "And they are Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme." Naruto said, gesturing to his teammates.

"Dobe." Sasuke muttered to himself.

After exchanging pleasantries, they began to talk about the exams. "So what do you think the test is going to be about?" Sakura asked.

"From my understanding." Fujitsu said "There are always three parts of the exam. The first two parts are meant to get rid of a lot of the genin, while the third part is a tournament style match between all the ones who made it. But the first two tests are always up in the air depending on where you're taking the test."

"My brother took a test in Konoha." Takkana said. "He told me that the first test was a written one, while the second was some sort of survival exercise."

Naruto looked downtrodden at the news. He absolutely hated all written tests. They were his worst area in the academy. Naruto's eyes widened in realization. 'I forgot my bo staff and senbon pouch at home. Well at least the first part is a written, so I'm not at a disadvantage without them.'

The blonde spawned a clone and instructed it to go home and get the desired items.

"So how do you guys know each other?" Sakura asked.

"He got us some ramen." Fujitsu said.

"But that's only because you didn't want to get sushi." Takkana said in rebuttal.

"And that's because sushi tastes like shit." He replied belligerently.

"It does not taste like shit! Katsudon is what tastes like shit."

"You must be mentally impaired to think that Katsudon tastes bad."

"Here we go again." Fu muttered

Naruto nervously scratched the back of his head and looked at his teammates. "They argue a lot." He explained.

Sasuke and Sakura looked at the pair fight with mildly interested eyes before starting to edge away and get to the academy.

As she was trying to break up their shouting match over nothing, Fu waved goodbye to Naruto, who returned the gesture.

The academy, as it they would have it, was jam-packed beyond capacity. Members of all different nations were merely trying to get a comfortable standing space without getting bumped into by another team. Team 7 managed to shove their up the stairs and into the right set of rooms for when the examinations would take place.

They briefly met with other members of other teams, but they had to be separated to make way for the stream of other applicants interested in taking part of the exams. Sasuke, with the aid of his eyes, estimated that there were about 300 people total participating.

Once they were sufficiently cramped against the wall, there was a blast of smoke and a group of Konoha chunin and jonin appeared, upside-down and attached the ceiling. "QUIET!" The one in charge shouted out. He was a scary looking man wearing a large black trench coat and sporting many scars all over his face. "WE WILL NOW BEGIN THE FIRST STAGE OF THE CHUNIN EXAMS. YOU WILL BE GIVEN NUMBERS THAT CORRESPOND TO YOUR DESIGNATED SPOT IN ONE OF THREE CLASSROOMS. NUMBER 1 IS…" he trailed off as he recounted the numbers of all the three hundred or so genin.

Naruto filed into the third room along with all the other genin assigned there. He was number 279. All of the numbers were based on last name, so he sat rather close by Sasuke, who got 268. The person sitting to his left was none other than Fu. Naruto gave a slightly nervous wave her way, which was returned. The sound of the scary man shouting in the first room graced his ears, but the walls were too thick, making the noise unintelligible.

After a good 30 seconds of nothing but silence, the man poofed his way into the room that they were sitting in. He was grinning cruelly. "MY NAME IS MORINO IBIKI. I HOPE THAT YOU LIKE THE PERSON SITTING NEXT TO YOU, BECAUSE YOU'RE GOING TO BE GOING THROUGH THE REST OF THE EXAMS WITH HIM OR HER." Naruto's eyes widened and looked over to Fu. "I am the proctor of the first stage of the exams. The first stage of the exams will be the written stage. There will be no cheating whatsoever. If you are caught cheating 5 times, you will be disqualified. You may work in conjunction with your partner. When I Body Flicker out of here to give the instructions to the third room, you may begin. You will have one hour exactly to complete all questions on the exam."

A couple of chunin entered the room and started handing out pieces of paper face down. "You may begin… now!" With that, the man poofed away in a plume of smoke and everyone turned over their pieces of paper.

It was dead silent. Nobody was talking, even if Ibiki implied that they could. Naruto looked down at his own piece of paper. Even on a cursory glance, Naruto knew that there was no way that he would get any of the answers right. Looking to his left at Fu, he noticed that she was in a very similar predicament. She looked up from her piece of paper and met his gaze. They shared one very long, very tense staring session.

Naruto gulped audibly, then went over his questions one more time to make sure that there weren't any questions that he could have gotten right, but came up fruitless. There were 20 questions total, but they all had either impossibly difficult mathematical equations on them to find out the velocity of various ninja weapons, or extremely obscure historic trivia. Who cares who the second wife of the third son of Lord Digimon IV was?

There was the sound of intermittent scrambling of pencil on paper, but other than that, total silence. The scratching started to bug Naruto's ears they were so annoying. Looking over to Fu, he saw that she was staring intently at her paper, as if trying to figure out a question.

Naruto started getting really, really worried. He didn't know any of the answers to the test and it looked like Fu didn't either.

She started scratching something out on her paper and showed it to Naruto. Naruto looked over, expecting to find the answer to a problem and was only met with the words

_I think we have to cheat_

Naruto looked at the words for a few seconds with a confused expression on his face. Grabbing a pencil, he scrawled out some more words beneath hers

_But he said that we'd be disqualified_

_Only after 5 tries. That means that if we get it within the first 4 tries, then they won't do anything about it_

_That… makes sense I guess. But how are we going to do it?_

She looked at him with wide, concerned eyes, then shrugged.

_I've got really good hearing, but no one is talking._

Naruto's eyes narrowed as he thought out a way to cheat. God, the noiselessness was deafening. Naruto couldn't think with the only noise being the silent scratching of pencil on paper.

Naruto's eyes lit up. He grabbed a pencil and wrote under his message

_I have an idea, but you have to play along._

She looked at what he wrote down and nodded.

Naruto took a deep breathe to calm his nerves and said "Hey Fu, do you know the answer to question 3?"

Even the pencils stopped scratching away on paper. All eyes were on Naruto and Fu due to the fact that he spoke out loud. None of the proctors said anything however, and none of them wrote anything on their papers, meaning that speaking out loud was allowed within the rules.

Fu started to splutter out words nervously as she noticed that all eyes were on her. Finally mustering up the courage to speak, she said "I-I don't know. It's kind of hard."

"Yeah I know. When would we ever need to know which summoning contract was the seventh ever made? This is pretty stupid."

"Well, it is a historic piece of knowledge…"

Naruto eyed the rest of the class. Most of them went back to their papers, but some started to speak in hushed tones as well. It was if his speaking had validated their reason and ability to speak with each other as well. But it wasn't enough. He had to make sure that everyone knew that it was okay to speak. He had to somehow transition the subject away from the test and onto something of no consequence.

"So after we ace the exams, do you have any plans?"

"Err… W-What?"

"Are you doing anything after the exams?" Naruto winked at her, trying to get her to play along

"No, why?"

"I was wondering if you'd like to go out and get lunch with me."

Fu's eyes widened. "W-What? Like a date?"

"Yeah, a date."

By now the entire room was at least chatting with each other. All except the villages that were hostile towards one another. But Naruto couldn't hear any of the specifics, only hoping that it somehow had something to do with the exam questions.

"W-Why me?"

"Because you're pretty and I like you."

"Err… um… yes. Okay."

"That's great, now" Naruto lowered his voice to a whisper "Can you hear anything about the questions?"

Snapping out of a reverie, she nodded and began to circle and write out answers on the questionnaire that she could hear the answers to. Naruto copied down everything that she wrote down, but it was difficult, he guessed, to hear the answers the short and long answers rather than the multiple choice answers. More than once, a proctor threw a kunai at a desk pair and ordered that they had cheated too often, but this never happened to Naruto and Fu.

They were able to get through the hour having written down 15 out of the 20 questions with answers that Fu believed were correct. They high-fived after that.

Once exactly one hour had passed, Ibiki showed up once again in a puff of smoke. "PENCIL'S DOWN!" he ordered.

There was a united sound of sticks of wood impacting the surface of the desks. Ibiki smirked "You will now answer the secret 21st question. But be wary. If you accept to answer this question and don't get it right, then you'll be disqualified from taking the chunin exam forever."

Cries of indignation rang throughout the room. Ibiki let them wash over him for a good 30 seconds before shouting "SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU WEAKLINGS. If you don't want to answer the question, that's fine by me. You won't have to risk being a genin forever. But if you do forfeit, then you'll forfeit your partner as well"

He went quiet and waited for answers to come by. One by one, people stood up and announced their choice to back out of the exams.

Fu glanced to Naruto with a worried expression, but he showed a calm and confident demeanor. She nudged him and stared directly into his eyes. The look told him everything that he needed to know. He merely gave her a thumbs up and a grin.

Taking this as a sign to not worry about them failing, she decided to keep quiet and see how it all played out.

"Is there anybody else?" Ibiki asked once the voices quieted down and there was only about half the class left. When he got no words in return, he merely stated "File out to the main room."

"What about question 21?" a random iwa shinobi asked.

"File out." Ibiki stated far more severely "To the main room!"

Getting his point, all the shinobi that were left walked off and into the room where they all started out in. There were significantly less people there now. Only about a third made it, including their class.

Ibiki, deciding to forgo the Body Flicker, walked up to the front of the room where he stopped to face the crowd of genin.

"Congratulations, you have all passed the first-"

A ball of cloth crashed through the window and threw kunai to the two separate corners of the ceiling. In it contained Anko, and the cloth read:

_Entering: Anko Mitarashi, proctor of the second exam_

"No time to quibble or quabble, you're going to be taking the-"

"Anko!" Ibiki said loudly.

"What?" she hissed "I'm getting in my groove here."

"You jumped the gun. I haven't even finished explaining the first exam yet."

She grinned and looked on at him with a smug expression. "Too slow huh? You should retire old man."

He was about to repute her statement when another genin asked "So what's happening? What about the twenty first question?"

He looked at all of them with disinterested eyes. "One of your classes was told that if they sold out the person that they were partnered with, then they would enter the next stage of the exam. They were all disqualified for doing so, however, and there were only 3 teams that made it out of it. Another class was given a packet that told them to read all the instructions carefully before they made a mark on the test. The last thing in the packet was a statement saying that if they made any marks on the packet, then they'd be disqualified. A surprisingly large amount of teams made it through, with 36 not being disqualified. The last class was given an ultimatum for a last answer and was told that if they didn't get the last question right, then they'd be disqualified from being a genin forever. Those that didn't, automatically get into the next round. 26 teams made it."

"But wait. Why did you do that? What's the importance of those tests?" the same genin asked.

"The first test was telling you that going back on your teammates is detrimental in the long run. The second was to test your ability to follow simple instructions. The last one was to test your willingness to go on missions of grave importance that you were given limited information on."

Everyone present gave various nods or sounds of approval.

"Now!" Anko shouted out to get their attention on her. "Now that you've gotten through the first test. I'm going to decrease your numbers by two thirds in the next one! Everyone, follow ME!" at the last word, she jumped right back out the shattered window and onto the floor below. Everyone clamored behind her and began jumping out the window to the floor below, creating a funnel point.

Naruto sighed into his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Come on Fu." he said to the girl that was still by his side. "Let's just take the stairs."

"But she said to follow-"

"And that's just Anko being Anko. It's okay to take the stairs."

She seemed doubtful, but followed him nonetheless.

**AN/ Here's the first exam. In the next part, Naruto's team is going to see what he's been doing for the past week and you'll meet everyone else that made it.**

**Read and review**

**And as always, have a gentlemanly day.**


	9. a second exam

Chapter 9

The kids filed out of the window of the academy like so many ants down an anthill. To Naruto, it was actually quite the humorous sight seeing the advanced game of follow the leader happen as all the advancing members jump out the academy window at a snail's pace and run after the next kid.

Naruto looked dispassionately at the scene in front of his eyes. In the distance, he could see that the line generally made it to training ground 44. The Forest of Death. "Might as well get going." Naruto murmured to Fu.

"OI! Boss!" Naruto turned his head to see a clone walking leisurely out of the academy building with his bo-staff in one hand and his senbon needle bag in the other. The clone tossed both items at the original, who dutifully caught them, before fishing out a pamphlet and a book from his pocket and giving them to the original as well. "I signed up for a few classes in the academy too while you were dicking around in the first exam."

"Cool, you can dispel then." The original said while strapping the senbon bag to his leg right next to his kunai holster.

"You know a solid clone jutsu?" Fu asked.

"Huh?" Naruto asked distractedly while moving in the direction of the forest of death. "Yeah, the shadow clone technique. It's really cool."

They began jumping across the rooftops as they ran to the forest of death. Fu wasn't very talkative by nature, so the time passed rather quickly as they ran to the supposed next stage of the exam without any conversation. Naruto was fine with that as he spent the majority of the time running processing the information that the clone had given him when it dispelled.

So apparently classes cost a lot of money when you weren't enrolled as a student in a publically serviced institution. He'd definitely have to make some more job clones if he was going to afford those classes, however they did open up in a month, giving him ample time to make that kind of money. After that, he was going to have to buy the required books and file out the paperwork required to get him into Introduction to Business, Business and World Economics, and Business Theory.

All of the business classes were taught by someone who went by Maou-sensei. A weird name even in the ninja world.

Before he knew it, Naruto and Fu were at one of the many entrances to the forest of death among the milling around genin teams that made it. Naruto craned his neck every which way to get any glimpses of his teammates. This proved to be a fruitless endeavor up until he saw a shock of pink hair stand out at the outskirts of the crowd.

"There." Naruto pointed out excitedly while grabbing onto Fu's arm and pulling her with him to his female teammate.

"Hey Sakura-chan!" He yelled out. She turned her head to see who was shouting at her before giving a half-smile half-wave. Naruto pulled up with Fu in tow to find out that Sakura had been in a 'conversation' with Ino and had resumed immediately when they pulled up.

"Hey dobe." Sasuke said from off to the side. "I'm surprised you made it."

"Of course I made it. I'm awesome. Fu's awesome too though." Fu clutched onto one arm and looked down with a bashful expression on her face.

Naruto looked at this expression of shyness with confused eyes. "What's wrong Fu? You were _really_ awesome. We wouldn't have made it through the exam if it weren't for you."

"Yes we would. He wasn't even scoring based on the points."

"Well… yeah. But that doesn't mean that you didn't do really good."

She smiled a little bit, but her demeanor didn't change in the slightest from his comforting words. Sasuke quirked an eyebrow at their behavior. "What's up with the bo-staff?"

"Huh?"

"The bo-staff on your back. Why do you have it?"

"Oh, that. I've been practicing with it."

"But… why?"

"Because I got a scroll for it and it seemed cool."

Sasuke looked like he was going to comment further, but decided not to as it was impossible to argue with Naruto's logic at times.

"So you're paired up with Fu for this?"

Naruto nodded.

"Well at least you know her. I'm with that guy." Sasuke jerked a thumb in the direction of a non-descript guy talking to his two other teammates. One with red hair and glasses, and another that looked extraordinarily creepy.

"Yikes. I feel bad for you." Sasuke grunted an affirmative.

"Yo Naruto!" Kiba shouted out as he drew near to the group. By his side was a slightly disgruntled looking Sand shinobi wearing what looked like either a black cat suit, or a black bat suit. Either way, he looked silly

"What's up Kiba?" Naruto said as they slapped hands.

"Got through the exam."

"Just barely.' The suna-nin said. "You were just about to write all over the test when I stopped you."

"Yeah, well that doesn't matter anymore. Because we don't need to worry about trick questions in this part of the exam." Kiba declared confidently.

Kankuro palmed his forehead. "You don't know that. That crazy proctor lady hasn't even told us what this part of the exams is."

Kiba made wide gesticulations towards the tree line. "Oh what? You think that we're going to be taking another written exam then?"

Kankuro crossed his arms over his chest. "No, what I'm saying is that there might be a side to this next exam that isn't immediately apparent!"

As they continued to bicker back and forth, Shikamaru entered the fray with a tired expression on his face. He was being dragged to the group by an irate red-headed Kumo-nin. She dropped him off as soon as she made contact with another of her comrades, the white haired one that Naruto had found the sensei for.

"Hey Shikamaru. Still whipped by women as always?" Naruto asked

He shrugged and made a noncommittal grunt of affirmation. "Might as well be."

"Is anyone else coming?"

Shikamaru looked at the sky as he began to think about that question. "Chouji didn't make it past. Neither did Shino. I think Hinata made it through-"

"Hey!" an excited voice interrupted their conversation. Tenten ran up to Naruto with a joyed expression. "You made it! I didn't see you in the exam hall."

"I didn't see you either."

As they got caught up in their respective examinations, the partner of Tenten walked up to Fu.

"So you're partners with Naruto-san?" Fujitsu asked.

Fu nodded. "Err… yeah. I suppose that you're partners with her." Fu asked, pointing to Tenten.

"Yeah. Have you seen Takkana? I could have sworn that she made it through the exams."

Unknown to them, a very very frightened Takkana was following a very very frightening individual who had red hair and a sand gourd on his back. He didn't seem in any specific hurry to get to the test, and Takkana was very afraid of what he might do to her if she suggested that they speed up their pace. He had already threatened her with death once before and she was sure that he was fully willing and capable of following through with that threat.

"No I haven't seen her. I hope that she's alright."

On the shack that was connected to the gate to the forest of death a poof of smoke materialized. In common Anko fashion, she let the smoke disperse to show her in her confident-and-brusque pose. "Alright you guys! This is the start of the second stage of the exam. There are a total of 65 teams and 130 individuals left. As I said earlier, I'm going to reduce that by two thirds." She fished 3 organisms out of her pocket. "Each team will be given either a snake, a toad, or a slug." Anko brandished each of the separate species in her hand. "Each and every one of these creatures is extremely venomous. The slugs and toads by touch, and the snake by bite. Your job is to keep one of these creatures and take two others of different teams. Then you make it to the center of the forest where there will be a building waiting for you. You must make sure that your animals does not run away. You must make sure that your animals are alive and accounted for at the end of the exam. You must keep your partner alive, as we won't take half of a team. You must make sure that you have at least one slug, one toad, and one snake. If you bring more than one of the species, we don't really care. But if you bring any less, then you won't get in. Are we clear?"

A hand shot up amongst the crowd of genin. He was a nerdy looking guy with glasses and a white ponytail going down to mid-back. "Excuse me, but how long do we have for this test."

She smiled disconcertingly at him. "Thanks for asking that. You have a grand total of 7 days, one week, to make it to the center. Also, just to make myself clear, killing is frowned down upon, but still allowed. Ah! That reminds me." She fished out an alarmingly large stack of papers from out of her inside pocket. "If you wish to continue with this exam, then you will have to sign these papers. They state that it's not our fault if you die. Now, who am I going to get to pass these out?"

Anko pulled a kunai out of her pocket and began to point at some of the genin down below. "Eeny, Meeny, Miney, MO!" At the sound of MO, she threw the kunai without warning at Naruto, which sliced his cheek wide open.

"AWW FUCK!" Naruto clutched at his bleeding cheek out of reflex as blood poured out of the wound. Getting his wits about him, he pinched the cheek to his shoulder and used his blood soaked hands to try and create the seals for the mystic palm technique, but his fingers kept on slipping.

While he was doing this, Anko body flickered over to him and tossed the legally binding contracts to the ground as she busied herself licking his cheek wound. Naruto froze in pain, fear, and general disgust as Anko continued to lap up the blood flowing from his cheek. The rest of the genin made a rough circle to watch in stupification as Anko drank his blood as ravenously as a vampire.

Naruto gained his wits, roughly shoved his teacher away from him, and completed the Mystic Palm seals. "WHAT THE FUCK ANKO!?" he finally shouted out.

"Looks like we need to work on your reflexes." She drawled out in an uninterested tone, acting as if there wasn't blood dribbling down her chin.

"You went way too far." Naruto said as seriously as he could. "You seriously went way too fucking far."

Anko glanced at her little student. He looked scared out of his wits, but that wasn't the thing that made her pause for a second. No, there was something in his eyes that spoke out to her on a more profound level. He looked almost… betrayed by her actions.

It wouldn't be the weirdest or most grotesque thing that she's ever done in front of him. Heck, she taught him the proper way to wield a hand-axe when amputating a limb, using a living person to do so.

"Just hand out the fliers. Okay?" She said with the same uninterested tone, albeit toned down a little.

Naruto wiped his hands on his pants, thoroughly dirtying them with blood, before bending down to pick up the packets on the ground. Without any words, he began passing them out to the other genin. They all resumed what they were doing before, even if they did have slightly wider eyes than before, or spoke in hushed tones.

Kiba ran up to Naruto with the rest of the remaining rookie 9 in tow. "Dude, what the fuck was that? Do you even know her?"

It took a few seconds for Naruto to reply. "Yeah, I know her. She's been my sensei for the past week."

"Why would she do that?" Ino asked with genuine concern.

"That's just how Anko is sometimes."

"Even so." Tenten said. "That was way too much. You could report her for doing stuff like that."

"She usually doesn't go that far." Naruto made to exit the conversation by going and handing out the contracts to the rest of them, but Kiba blocked him angrily and took a hold of half the contracts. Tenten also came up and took a portion of the contracts, prompting the rest of the group to do so as well.

"That's seriously messed up man." Kiba continued in a hushed tone. "You should report her."

"I'm not going to do that. And can we just… drop it?"

"It's in the rules of being a jonin teacher that even if the jonin teacher has weird training rituals, then the student must give their express approval of going through the training. And there may be no instances where the jonin instructor hurts or injures the genin student for seemingly no reason. Opening up your cheek and drinking your blood is kind of against the rules for jonin."

Naruto gave Kiba a pointed look. "You memorized the jonin instructor rulebook?"

"I skimmed it, but that doesn't matter. She's not allowed to do that stuff to you."

"Listen Kiba, she's not actually my jonin instructor or just _a_ jonin instructor. Kakashi didn't teach me before, so I asked a couple of other jonin to teach me. Anko is the only one who accepted. She's the only one who's teaching me and I'm not going to turn her in."

"Even so, she has to be aware that it's against the rules to do that shit."

"And I'll talk to her later I guess."

It took up until they finished passing out the papers for Kiba to speak again. "Look man, I'm just trying to look out for you."

"…Thanks. Thanks for looking out for me, but I've got it handled."

Kiba didn't look too sure.

00000000

About 30 minutes later.

Naruto and Fu were hopping through the tree line, trying to get as far away from the starting area as possible. In Naruto's hand was a purple snake being held in leather gloves. He had to be extraordinarily careful with the snake seeing as it was just a really venomous snake, and not a summon of any kind. Naruto didn't know what practical applications the gloves had, but it did give him a sense of protection that handling a snake barehanded didn't.

Eventually, Fu gave the sign to stop and landed on a tree about mid-way up. When Naruto was by her side, she said. "We have to have a plan or something."

Naruto nodded. "Right. I guess that means that we have to know what we can do."

"Okay, you start."

"I'm good at… setting and detecting traps, I know the shadow clone jutsu, the substitution, and the transformation jutsu."

"Other than the basic three jutsu, I know the scale powder jutsu and the water blade jutsu."

"I haven't heard of those two before."

"The water blade is kind of self-explanatory, the scale powder jutsu includes me exhaling a lot of scale powder which has the ability to reflect light to high degrees and is also combustible."

"Combustible." Naruto said slowly.

"Things that are combustible can be lit on fire easily. Although the scale powder is more explosive when there's a spark than anything."

Naruto put his hand to his chin and put up his best thinking face. "Okay, here's how I think we should do it. I use my shadow clones to make a lot of traps all around here, then once they dispel and we know where the trapped teams are, we go over there, you use your scale powder thing to distract them, and I'll grab their animal."

"What if their animal is something that we already have?"

"Then we toss it back. No sense in trying to hold to two snakes when you only have to hold onto one."

"Hehe, that's what she said." A voice said from above them.

Naruto shrieked and fumbled around with the very venomous snake in his grasp while Fu took out a kunai and placed herself in front of Naruto in basic VIP protection stance.

"Oh cool your panties." The voice said from above them. Anko revealed herself from the leaves and jumped down in front of the two.

"Anko? What are you doing here? Aren't you the proctor?"

"Well, duh. What do you think I'm doing? Proctoring."

"Did we do something wrong?" Naruto asked, still semi-struggling to keep the snake's head under control.

"Well not really, but I do need to talk to you."

"Okay." Naruto didn't move from his spot next to Fu.

"…Alone."

"Listen, we're in the middle of an exam where people are trying to kill us. How important is it that you need to talk to me alone and leave Fu behind."

Anko very nearly growled in frustration. "Okay, fine. I just came to tell you…" Anko trailed off at the end.

"Yeah?"

"Just that…" She trailed off once more.

"What?"

"Goddamn it. I'm not good at all this sentimental stuff. I'm sorry, okay?" She finished brusquely. "Slicing open your cheek and drinking the blood was a little overboard, I admit. So I graciously apologize." Anko huffed, looked away, and put her arms over her chest.

Naruto and Fu shared a look. "…It's fine Anko." Naruto finally got out.

Her stance didn't change at all other than one eye glancing over to Naruto.

Naruto sighed with a dusting of a smile on his face. "It's fine Anko. I graciously accept your gracious apology."

She grinned despite herself. "Great so we're all squared away." She turned around and jumped away from the two.

"…Your teacher is kind of loopy." Fu commented.

"You don't know the half of it."

00000000

1 day later.

"Come Samui-chan! Let us show the teams our flames of youth!" Rock Lee was just about to jump down from the tree that he and Samui were squatting on and race into the situation unfolding before their eyes, but Samui held him in place from his collar.

"First off. Don't call me Samui-chan ever again. Second off. We wait to see who's leftover, _then_ we engage."

The fight that they were watching was kind of strange. There was a Suna genin who had a strange ability to control sand and was making liberal use of it in the fight. Behind him was one slightly moist globule of sand levitating in the air at about head height, along with a dry one, and a very large globule about the size of a person directly behind him.

The people that he was fighting seemed rather well suited to each other in terms of combat ability. One tried to distract the enemy using superior speed while the other attempted to capture the Suna genin in a genjutsu.

No matter how well they seemed in tune with one another, their efforts were fruitless. The Suna genin didn't seem very affected by the genjutsu, nor did he have any problems keeping track of the fast one.

Eventually, as the fight wore on, the Suna genin made use of their blind spots to capture them both simultaneously within his sand.

They struggled somewhat and the Suna genin seemed to be very conflicted for a moment before a segment of one of the opposing genin floated off from his covered form. The third small globule joined the other two at height level.

"Hehehe. Blood for mother." In a horribly gruesome display, the Suna genin's fist clenched and the two opposing genin were completely crushed under the force of the sand. Blood spurted out and soaked the ground before the little psychopath.

"N-Now do we engage, Samui-san?" Lee asked.

Her eyes narrowed coldly. "No. Now we flee before he realizes that we've been watching him."

"R-Right."

00000000

1 day later.

Karui stumbled through the brush yet again and turned around to throw a wild slash at the enemy following her. The blade met nothing but air.

"Shit." She hissed to herself. More rustling in the underbrush caught her attention. From the depths of the forest, she could make out huge, glowing green eyes staring back at her. A sharp snarling sound broke her out of reverie and she was off like a rocket one more in the opposite direction of the eyes.

Karui wanted to scream. Not out of fear, mind you, but out of frustration and hatred. 'I knew I shouldn't have gone with that twat's plan.'

More snarling from directly behind her. Her pace quickened and she was trying with all the mental capacity that she had left to remember where their designated rendezvous point was. He mentioned that he was a shadow user. He might be able to help her out of this mess.

She broke through the foliage into the clearing where they designated to meet up at if things went sideways. The snarling was becoming unbearable. There were rustles in the upper parts of the trees and animalistic howling sounds.

Shikamaru wasn't there by the tree where he said they should meet up. "Shit." She hissed out once more.

She drew her sword and stepped into Kumo's kenjutsu stance taught in the academy. Karui tried to pinpoint where the enemy or enemies were, but every time she tried to get a look at a figure in the bushes, rustling or snarling brought her attention to behind her. This continued until she began to nearly hyperventilate from nervousness.

All at once, she had enough of the figures' petty mind games. "Come out and fight you fucks!"

The shrubs to her left broke as Shikamaru walked out, carefully balancing a slug and a toad in either hand. "Pipe down will you?"

The sound of a beast roaring brought her attention to behind her. "Get back." She ordered.

Shikamaru looked at the sight with a perplexed expression before nodding to himself and walking up the irascible Cloud genin and tapping her shoulder. "Kai."

The rustling, the snarling, the growling, the roaring, the howling, the eyes. They all vanished. "W-What?" she asked.

"You were under a genjutsu." Shikamaru explained.

"W… ooohhh." Everything made sense now. Nothing actually came at her and tried to engage physical combat. She only perceived sounds and images that looked or seemed threatening.

Her temper flared up once more. "What the fuck? I thought we had a plan."

He leveled an uninterested stare at her. "I thought so too, until you went and got yourself trapped in a genjutsu and started blundering through the forest."

"RRRRrrrr… how did _you_ manage to defeat that team?" she asked, noticing the new addition to their animal repertoire.

"I didn't defeat them. I took the slug while they were too busy laughing their asses off at you stumbling through the forest. They didn't notice me then, but by now, they're probably wise to it."

"So we should… start running?"

He shrugged.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I so wish I had anybody else for a teammate."

"The feeling is mutual."

00000000

Meanwhile

Omoi looked at a rather cruel scene.

On the ground were two Rain shinobi clutching their calves that had been slit open. They weren't able to move, much less walk.

By his side, a rather groggy Ino was coming around from the forest floor. "Your kekai genkai is really scary." He commented.

"It's not a kekai genkai. Why didn't you catch me? I warned you what was going to happen." She asked accusingly.

"I did catch you, but then I dropped you."

She began mumbling to herself. "This doesn't even matter. They had a snake too."

"Should we kill them?"

"What? No. God no." She replied before walking off in the direction of their camp. "Come on. We only have one animal left and I'm not going to let Sakura get to the camp before me."

"But what if they get another Rain ninja to patch them up? Then they might try and hunt us down. Then they might try to kill us for retribution. Then I'll have to act like a hero and save you. Then-"

"Oh my god, will you shut up?" She asked in a tired tone. "What's up with you and overthinking things?"

He piped down, not having an answer for that.

00000000

A short time later

Neji parried a thrust, blocked an overhead strike, and caught a kick. This fight was child's play.

The boy he was fighting jumped back and drew a kunai from his belt. Neji prepared himself for knife fighting by going back into the basic Hyuuga gentle fist stance. The Mist nin he was fighting was actually pretty good with knife fighting, but he should have started out with it first. Then he might have stood an actual chance.

Neji grabbed the boy's wrist, took a hold of the knife with his other hand, and took a hold of it. Then he thrust his palm forward, still holding the handle of the knife and blocked the tenketsu in his arm. With that arm now paralyzed, Neji was free use it as leverage and pull him into a stab.

The kunai sank into the kid's chest with a squelch and he fell to the ground, dead. Neji looked at the dead kid with no amount of sympathy.

The fight going on behind him with his cousin and the other teammate of the Mist genin was… continuing. Hinata isn't as good as he is with the gentle fist stance. He knows it, she knows, everyone in the clan knows it. That isn't to say that she's not a good fighter however. She's remarkably talented at the gentle fist. But what really lowers her potential as a shinobi is that she just doesn't have the heart for it.

There were several openings in the guy's guard, but she didn't take the opportunities as they were all lethal in nature. Neji nearly sighed in exasperation. He walked over to the fight and slit the shinobi's throat while he was getting his breath.

"You're too kind hearted Hinata. He was trying to kill you. Try to kill him back." She looked at the blood pouring out of the boy's neck and blanched a horrible, pasty white.

Neji knelt down and checked his clothing. A neon blue toad hopped out of his sweatshirt and nearly touched Neji. His reflexes saved him when he brought his own leather glove to pluck the toad out of the air. It was a good thing that the gentle fist went through things like clothing, else he might have a big problem with holding onto the venomous animals.

"Come on. We have to capture two others and waiting a week to do so is unacceptable." Neji said as he hopped to a tree and sped off.

Hinata was trembling a little, but was still capable of movement. When they first started out, Neji had given Hinata responsibility over the snake, but she accidentally dropped it within a few hours. Its chakra signature was nearly indistinguishable from the other snakes in the forest, meaning that they had to give up on it.

Hinata hopped up and after her retreating teammate and cousin.

00000000

_Random Encounter! Don't let Akamaru die_

_Reward: vastly increased influence with Kiba and Akamaru_

Naruto looked at the small pop up with wide eyes. 'That can't… be good'

"Naruto!" Fu alighted on the branch opposite him. "There's a team nearby. Your friend Kiba is in it and he's having a panic attack. What should we do?"

00000000

With Kiba and Akamaru.

Tears burned Kiba's eyes as he continued to try and bandage his dog up. The blood was pouring out in great amounts, more than a small dog like Akamaru should be able to make.

His last encounter with another team had ended up with Kankuro knocked out and Akamaru slowly bleeding to death from a wound that stretched from his neck all the way to his thigh.

Kiba quickly gave them his slug and they left without any problem at all, leaving Kiba to tend to his dog.

Kiba wiped his eyes once more to clear them of the salty water. "Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit SHIT! Come on Akamaru, you're going to make it." he said smiling at his semi-conscious dog whilst his lip was trembling.

Akamaru gave him one slow blink and a pained whimper in return.

Kiba didn't know what to do. He wasn't done applying the bandages yet and they were already thoroughly saturated with the life blood of his dog.

He should have paid more attention to his sister when she was telling him how to sew up wounds for dogs and other animals. He had dismissed it as knowledge that he didn't really need.

He really needed it.

Kiba felt useless as his he saw his dog dying in front of his eyes. He grabbed Akamaru's head and looked directly into his eye. "You're going to fine Akamaru." He said with a trembling voice. "You're going to be fine, and we're going to kick ass, and we're going to pass the exam, and we're going to be best buddies forever."

Akamaru wasn't capable of producing sounds anymore. Akamaru's panting increased and he blinked slowly once more.

Kiba began to break down in tears and wrenching sobs as he saw the life drain from Akamaru's eyes. The blood started to stop coming out of the wound.

"KIBA!" Naruto bounded across the trees and lighted down next to the distraught Inuzuka.

"N-Naruto?" Kiba got out as he saw Naruto and several clones of himself cut the hastily made bandages from Akamaru's body. "W-What are you doing Naruto?" His limbs felt weak and shaky and hollow.

He scrambled up to one of the Narutos and tried to wrench him away from the small pup. "GET OFF MY DOG!" Kiba screamed frantically, not knowing what to do. The Naruto clone shoved Kiba to the ground and merely replied "We're saving Akamaru right now. Shut up and don't get in our way."

Sometimes the distraught needed a kick to the face in order to get them to act reasonably. "Y-You can do that?" Kiba asked with a shaky voice.

The Naruto didn't reply as he began to get out his field medic case along with the other Naruto's. There were only three around Akamaru, any more wouldn't fit. With the bandages now gone, they were free to sew the wound closed. Their Mystic Palm technique wasn't good enough to where they could heal rends in bodies as large as this one, so they had to use the field medicine training gotten from Anko.

All three of them sutured 2 areas in the wound per person, closing it for good. The process of closing the wound took about 20 seconds. The Naruto's then got out another implement and fed chakra into it. it began spitting out concentrated flame onto a small metal plate. They began to press the plates onto the small animal, cauterizing the wound.

Two Naruto's started the Mystic Palm Technique and brushed it over the wound while the other one checked Akamaru's breathing and heartbeat.

"How many blood pills did you give him?"

Kiba fumbled his words for a good 5 seconds before the Naruto slapped him sharply across the cheek to get him out of his stupor. "T-Three. All I had."

Naruto fished in his kit for a while before pulling out one blood pill. "The human body can only take 6 blood pills before it runs the risk of producing cancerous hemoglobin cells. I'm not sure what the number is for animals, but I'm guessing it's less." Naruto popped the pill into his mouth to chew it up and spat it into Akamaru's mouth, then he massaged the dog's throat to get it to swallow the mushy liquid.

"Shit" one of the clones said. "Heartbeat's gone. Get the defibrillator." Out of the sleeve of medical instruments came out a small circular pad with a handle on it. All he had to do was put chakra into it and it would send an electrical pulse into the body, shocking the heart into beating again.

He set it to its lowest setting before pressing it to the small dog's chest cavity. "Clear." The Naruto's withdrew their hands from the dog, allowing the defibrillator Naruto to send the charge into the dog without accidentally shocking the other Narutos dead.

One of the other Narutos brought his hand to Akamaru's chest once more. "No heartbeat."

They did this once more, then twice more, then thrice more before the Naruto checked Akamaru's chest and concluded that it was beating again. The Narutos continued with their Mystic Palm Technique again to run diagnostics and to make sure that Akamaru's body was holding up. After five minutes of continued scanning, the Naruto clones poofed away and the original stood up to address Kiba.

"He's going to be fine."

Kiba jumped up and wrapped Naruto in a crushing bear hug. His sobbing broke out again.

A fourth Naruto clone got up from scanning Kankuro and gave a thumbs up before dispelling as well.

Fu watched the whole thing happen with wide open eyes. "You're a medic nin?"

"Yeah… kinda" Naruto said while awkwardly patting Kiba on the back. "Guess I forgot to mention that huh?" he managed to pry the crying Inuzuka from his torso and lay him down.

"What Akamaru needs now is rest. He should be up in a few hours, given the blood pill works."

"Thanks man. Thanks so much." Kiba said. "I don't- I don't have any of the testing animals to give you."

Naruto stood stock still and looked off in the distance. "One of the traps got tripped." Naruto said to Fu. "And uhh… don't worry about it man. Comrades right?" the blonde Jinchuuriki offered his fist to Kiba.

Kiba tentatively tapped the fist with his own. Naruto shot off with Fu after that.

"I'll make it up somehow." Kiba said to himself, watching Naruto retreat off into the distance.

**AN/ hey, what's up? Not much to say in this chapter. Naruto's probably going to check out his guidebook sometime in the next one.**

**Read and Review.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**

**Ah yes, one more thing. A digital cookie to everyone that gets who Maou-sensei is.**


	10. a second exam pt 2

Chapter 10

Naruto put his hands on his hips and looked up at the captured game above him.

"Hello Naruto-san." The game wiggled in the air at him with a friendly smile on its face. "Please don't kill me."

Naruto sighed into his hand. Fujitsu would have rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment if it weren't for the fact that his arms were tied around his body by a length of rope that held him upside down from the tree canopy.

"Goddamn it. I cannot believe that this happened again." Fu alighted next the agitated Naruto.

"Hey Fu."

"Hey Fujitsu."

Naruto walked around the tree and found a thoroughly dizzy Tenten upside down and held tight to the tree trunk by a coil of rope

"Helloooo Narutoooo." She slurred out, clearly out of her head space from being upside down so long.

Naruto walked up the tree to cut Tenten loose while Fu did the same for Fujitsu.

Fujitsu merely fell down in a clump on the ground, while Tenten used Naruto as a support, seeing as her body felt alarmingly airy at the moment.

"This is the third time this has happened." Fu stated in reference to the fact that whenever they got a trap to work on someone, it was always someone Naruto knew. To date, they caught one team of Shikamaru and Karui, one team of Ino and Omoi, and now one team of Tenten and Fujitsu. They also got a random team of a Snow nin and a Moon nin, but even after an extensive search, they came up with nothing to show for their work.

Fujitsu groaned and got back up to his feet lethargically. At least he got to move around and sway the rope slightly, alleviating the effects of blood rushing to the head somewhat. "You could have been gentler." He complained.

"So what do you guys have?" Naruto asked.

"One toad and two slugs." Fujitsu said. "You?"

"Just a snake." Naruto patted a pouch on his hip rather affectionately. It squirmed uncomfortably in return for the gesture.

"Trade you a slug for a snake."

"Hehe. I think I'm going to have turn that down."

Fujitsu nodded in acceptance and began to stretch himself out. "Separate ways then?"

"Sure." Naruto tentatively let Tenten go so she could stand on her own two feet. She was still a little wobbly and red-faced, but was fine for the most part.

Naruto and Fu jumped up to the trees and began to hop to their home base. It was a longish run and they had a ways to go. After a while in silence, Naruto said "You're not really talkative are you?"

She blushed slightly out of embarrassment. "Not really, I guess."

"… So what's your home like?"

"I like it. Actually, taking the exams in this forest kind of reminds me of it."

"Does Taki have a lot of forests?"

"I live outside of Taki. There are a lot of forests there."

"You live outside your village? Isn't that kind of dangerous?"

"Not really. There isn't a lot of big game predators in the forests around Taki."

"Does anyone else live with you?"

She shook her head.

"Doesn't it get kind of lonely?"

"A little bit, but I have my books. And whenever I'm needed on a mission, they send a falcon my way."

"So why do you live in the forests anyways?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. It was the best for everyone."

"The best for everyone? What does that mean?"

"It means… that everyone's happier that way."

"Happier? Why would they be happier to not see you? You're awesome."

She blushed for a different reason this time. "Thanks." She said, smiling at him. "But you wouldn't be able to understand it."

"I'm not _that_ stupid you know. Why wouldn't I be able to understand?"

She giggled a little bit at his response. "It's not that you wouldn't understand because you're stupid. You wouldn't understand because… I'm in a unique situation I guess. The thing that sucks about being different is that you aren't able to get a lot of empathy."

"Oh god, why are you so vague with everything?" Naruto jabbed playfully.

"'Cuz I have to be."

"Hehe. You're kinda-"Naruto stopped on a branch without any warning. Fu jumped ahead a few lengths before noticing Naruto wasn't with her anymore.

Naruto's eyes were racing back and forth listlessly when Fu came to a stop beside him. "Is something wrong? Did another trap get pulled?"

"Oh shit." Naruto said quietly. "My teammate's about to die."

00000000

Sasuke was having problems.

These problems mostly manifested in that exceedingly strange and creepy Kusa nin that was attacking him.

His teammate was useless. Nowhere to be seen, nowhere to help, heck, Sasuke didn't even know if he was alive at the moment. The Uchiha couldn't bring himself to care however; he had been kind of a douche the past two days.

Sasuke ducked under a swipe that would have taken his head and tried to shove a kunai into the thing he was fighting. He used the pronoun, thing, to describe what he was facing. After all, there was no way that it could be human.

As a rule, the top tier shinobi almost always had some weird quirk or fighting style that got them on the top. However, being able to grow your neck out to monstrous lengths and try to bite your opponent just wasn't human.

His thrust missed by a mile as the Kusa nin bent its abdomen as an odd angle to the side. It used the momentum it gained by doing so to roundhouse kick Sasuke from the back and send him flying.

He impacted the trunk of a mighty oak with a sickening thud, spitting out bile and other fluids from his mouth as he did. Sasuke fell slowly to the ground, unable to move because of the lack of air in his lungs. The ground was coming up fast to meet him. He closed his eyes and did the best he could to brace for impact.

"MMmmph." Sasuke's world halted and shifted laterally from his perspective as a pink blur caught him midair.

Said pink blur landed heavily on a nearby branch with a heavy grunt. "I've got you Sasuke." Sakura said as she gingerly let him down.

As soon as Sasuke's feet touched the branch, his knees crumpled under him and was forced into squatting position from his exhaustion and injuries. "Sakura? What are you doing here? It's too dangerous." He tried to warn half-heartedly, eyelids fluttering open and closed.

"Don't worry. You're safe. We're going to protect you." Sakura replied with a determined look on her face.

"We?"

Another person landed on a branch a couple of trees to their right. She had dusty blond hair done up in four pigtails and was wearing some sort of purple dress/smock. In her hands was a long bo staff looking thing. "You got him?" She asked, not tearing her eyes from the upper foliage.

Sakura grabbed Sasuke's left arm and hoisted him up so she could support his body. "Yeah" she grunted out.

"Kukukuku." A voice from directly behind her. She whirled around and was put face to face to a man with a melting face who was detaching himself from the tree trunk her branch connected to. "I didn't know that Sasuke-kun had such loyal teammates." He said, almost beside himself in amusement.

"Get out of the way Sakura." Sasuke grunted out, trying to separate from the Haruno. "He's way too strong. He's a freak."

"I'm not abandoning you!"

A severe grunting came from their right. Not wishing to chance glancing away from the monster in front of them, they didn't see Temari unfold her fan and unleash a concentrated blast of wind at said monster.

Orochimaru was unable to move away in time to avoid getting hit square in the chest by the blast and get thrown away at the forestry. "Come on Sasuke!" Sakura nearly screamed as she tried to move with the stoic Uchiha. He jumped away with her, but refused to avert his eyes from the direction in which Orochimaru was thrown to.

Sasuke saw the body impact a tree far away with his sharingan. The body turned a dark brown and melted against the tree it impacted. "He's not gone." Sasuke rasped out.

"What?" Temari looked behind her shoulder to confirm what Sasuke said. Orochimaru melted from the tree ahead of her and thrust his palm forward. Snakes grew rapidly from his sleeves and tackled Temari against a tree with a gasp of air. The snakes oriented themselves to where they were hugging the girl to the tree with a tight grip. She was unable to move her hands to make any handseals.

"You know, for Itachi's brother, I was expecting something a bit… more." Orochimaru said casually.

"Sakura." Sasuke rasped out once more. "Get out of here. You can escape."

She shook her head and drew a kunai from her thigh. Holding the kunai at a cross-hold, she tried to put up her most intimidating face in her repertoire of facial expressions, but didn't get much success in intimidating the snake man.

"Wow, even in the face of death, your friend doesn't leave your side. How gallant." Orochimaru's tongue lengthened and shot forward to firmly grab Sakura's kunai hand. Her eyes barely had time to widen in surprise before Orochimaru whipped her away from Sasuke. He stumbled to the floor, now lacking support.

"Sakura!" he screamed at the direction where Sakura was flung to.

"You're thirteen, so I'm not exactly expecting you to go toe to toe with me. But come on, Itachi was an ANBU at your age."

Sasuke ground his teeth in frustration. "Shut your goddamn mouth."

"Hit a nerve then? Don't worry, you'll be useful. If not to your teammates, then at least to me." Orochimaru's neck grew as long as his tongue did previously and snapped towards Sasuke's neck. Too tired to resist, Orochimaru's mouth clamped down on the last Uchiha's neck with him barely being able to react in time.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH." Sasuke screamed in pain as he felt white-hot lead flood his system. Orochimaru smirked despite having his mouth full of neck, but it was cut short as his head was severed mid-neck.

Both parts of the body crumpled to the floor and fell off the tree. Fu, who had done the cutting, rushed over to Sasuke's side to make sure he was alright. After a few thrashing fits, Sasuke's eyes closed fitfully and froth emerged from his lips. "Are you alright?" she asked, testing to ascertain whether or not he was conscious.

Naruto landed next to her with two shadow clones in tow. They each held on to Sakura and Temari respectively. The original bent down at Sasuke's side and started the mystic palm for general diagnosis.

"I don't think we should stay here." Fu whispered to Naruto.

"Why not? You killed that guy, right?"

"There wasn't any blood."

Naruto got up and created another clone to carry the unconscious Uchiha. "Then yeah, we should probably leave."

All five of them shot off into the direction of Naruto's and Fu's home base.

"So what did that snake guy do to your teammate?" Fu asked.

"No frigging idea. Whatever that bite did, it created a sealing array that's messing up Sasuke's chakra. I don't know how to treat it."

"Will he be okay?"

Naruto adopted a dismal countenance. "I don't know." He said

"… He'll be okay." Fu stated with confidence.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because he has you looking after him." she said, smiling at him.

Naruto smiled back. "Thanks, but I don't think- SCATTER" a large boa constrictor flew out of the foliage and nearly hit the group head on, but missed by only a few feet as the five members immediately ran in different directions.

"Kukuku. What have we here? A Jinchuuriki?" a slimy voice said from somewhere in their general vicinity. It was impossible to hear where it was coming from.

Fu very nearly slipped on the branch she landed on. 'How does he know?' she asked herself. 'He shouldn't know.'

"What have you done with Sasuke-teme?" Naruto screamed out at the top of his lungs from somewhere in the distance. Fu was trying desperately to get away from the scene and hopefully recombine with the clones at home base. They _were_ just clones. It only took one hit and the cargo that they were holding onto would plummet to their death.

Fu stopped on a branch and pressed her back to its trunk. This is what most shinobi tactical experts would call a mission gone FUBAR.

Fucked. Up. Beyond. All. Repair.

They were fighting a man who had just knocked out 3 people rather effortlessly by himself, or so she assumed based on the outcome of his fight with Naruto's teammates. They had to protect 3 people, one dying from a strange seal that the man had given him. And they didn't know about any of his fighting prowess other than the fact that he can stretch his neck out, give others some sort of strange seal, and somehow avoid death.

Not only that, but he had information on her status as Jinchuuriki.

Fu ground her teeth in frustration. It wasn't supposed to be like this. She _liked_ Naruto. Probably not in a romantic way, but she did genuinely enjoy talking to him, and interacting with him, and being with him. He made her feel normal. He made her feel like she wasn't a freak and now that was all over, because now he knows that she's a Jinchuuriki.

They had made several plans to follow and phrases meant to enact them over their days together, well more like she forced them down his throat and tested him on them. It made sense to her to be safe rather than sorry. Scatter is the keyword used when they had precious cargo that needed to be saved and thus they run in different directions when ambushed to keep the chances of the people going after the precious cargo down to a minimum. Once they were sure that they weren't being followed, they meet up back at the home base.

That's the plan anyway.

The leaves rustled cacophonously in the trees around her. A big wind jutsu must have been used on Naruto. She shook her head. Fu could keep with the plan and go to home base to make sure that his teammates arrive there safely, or she could save her partner against an obviously more powerful foe.

Chances are he knows that she's a Jinchuuriki. He might not want her help. It might be better to wait at the base for his teammates.

She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Well, sometimes it's okay to be selfish every now and again and deviate from the plan

00000000

Naruto grit his teeth together and threw the senbon in his hands at the snake person. They all impacted with muted thuds in his torso and thighs. Laughter spluttered from the man's face. "These are poisoned right? What is this poison?... Well, it's plant based. Flowering plant… Narcissus? That's only toxic when ingested." Orochimaru said condescendingly. "Who taught you about poisons?"

Naruto spat a wad of blood to clear his mouth. "Self-taught."

Orochimaru tutted out his disapproval. "You know, you should really get a teacher for these things. You might hurt yourself otherwise."

Naruto glared at the man. His face was jubilant, joyous, happy beyond measure. He was having fun fighting Naruto. "I do have a teacher for poisons, we just haven't gotten to that point yet."

"Hmmm… You smell lightly of dango, snakes, and my curse seal. I was just thinking that you got the curse seal scent from your friend just now, but now I'm thinking that you've gotten it from somewhere else. I also only know one person who smells of dango and snakes so such a point that it would rub off on someone else. So Anko-chan took an apprentice then?"

Naruto growled at the man. The sealing array that appeared on Sasuke's neck did seem very familiar to the one on Anko, but this creep just confirmed it. Naruto was facing off against one of the most powerful people in the world. Orochimaru of the Sannin.

"I'm not her apprentice."

"You're not? Her lover then?"

Under any normal circumstances, Naruto would have blushed and spluttered and in the end have said no. There weren't normal circumstances. Naruto's glare intensified. "No. She's just my teacher."

"She took a genin team?"

"No, she's a special jonin. They don't let special jonins take teams."

"… So what are you then?"

"Her student."

"Students who spend enough time with their teachers that their scent rubs off on them are called apprentices."

Naruto was getting impatient. He drew his bo staff from his back once more. "I don't actually cared what I'm called, she's just kind of nitpicky about it. Now are we going to fight, or talk?"

Orochimaru chuckled as the senbon in his body drew out like they were being pushed. "You're brave, I'll give you that. Not exactly smart."

Orochimaru looked straight up to the sky and opened his mouth. He then regurgitated what looked like the handle of a sword. The snake man grabbed it and drew it out of his gullet with a flourish. Using his other hand, he made a 'come hither' motion.

Naruto ran at the man with the bo staff held diagonally to his torso. When he was near enough, Naruto used the end pointing downward to thrust forward and hopefully catch him unawares. Orochimaru batted the bo staff to the side and caught Naruto with the flat of the blade across his face.

Naruto pulled back and held his smarting cheek with his hand. God, that fucking hurt.

Orochimaru looked at the Jinchuuriki with an expecting look on his face. Naruto glared at him and ran forward, this time swinging the bo staff horizontally. Orochimaru directed the blow to go above his head, but Naruto was expecting him to do that. Instead of being unbalanced, Naruto used the momentum to spin himself around and swing downwards onto his head. Orochimaru put his blade diagonally to the blow, so the bo staff hit the ground with a thud. Naruto dug inwards and used it as a pull to swing his leg forward and kick him directly in the abdomen.

Orochimaru stumbled backwards off the branch and onto the ground below. Naruto didn't leave his guard down for a second. There was no way that one of the strongest ninjas in existence would be defeated by a fall. No matter how large of a fall.

Naruto backed all the way up on the branch until his back was touching the trunk. He kept his wits about him and glanced every which way so as to not fall prey to an ambush.

A great gale of wind blew through the branches and leaves in its way to hit Naruto. To dodge this, he jumped to the right and landed on another branch just in time to see the branch he was on just earlier get torn apart under the force of the wind.

Another one approached him from his left, forcing him to make the same maneuver. This happened twice more before Naruto found himself in a slightly bare copse of gigantic trees. Naruto stopped to catch his breath and look around him to see if there were any signs of wide scale wind attacks.

Great, splintering cracks emanated from Naruto's left. Turning around, he caught sight of a huge snake barreling towards him. As it moved and swerved through the forestry, it occasionally shoved aside a tree or slithered directly through thick branches.

Naruto froze. He had never seen anything so huge and menacing before in his entire life. It was almost unreal how large it was. Actually, scratch that, it _was_ unreal how large it was. And yet, Naruto was forced to acknowledge its existence by mere fact that it was splintering branches and cracking mighty oaks.

"NARUTO!" a piercing scream resounded throughout the forest, somehow draining out the sound of the snake carving a path to him.

After he heard that scream, something happened. He didn't know what, because he wasn't extremely cognizant of it and it also happened so fast. But what he did know was that when he opened his eyes and looked up, he saw that his hands were dug into beige colored scales that belonged to the snake that was barreling towards him.

He could feel himself straining against the force. It pushed his muscles beyond capacity of what they should be able to logically do, but he did it anyway.

"Kukukuku. Two Jinchuuriki? Now this is a surprise." The detached voice of Orochimaru said from atop the serpent. He could hear grunting coming from his side. Looking over, he was met with a huge shock.

Fu was opposite of him, doing her best to hold the snake away from them as well. However, her appearance had changed. The orange of her eyes had taken over them completely, making the sclera an orange as well as her pupils and irises. Her skin tone was darker as well, not drastically so, but definitely to the point where it was apparent.

"F-Fu?"

"N-Naruto?"

They were suddenly clutching nothing as the giant snake that Orochimaru summoned poofed out of existence. Orochimaru faced them from one of the few remaining branches in the copse of trees that they were in. "Mmmmm. You'll definitely make a suitable rival for Sasuke."

Naruto growled at the snake man. It was deep and menacing and did belong to any vocal range that a human could recreate. Fu made a vibrating sound from the back of her throat. It turned into a high frequency whine that would have burst the eardrums of any normal human. Luckily for them, Jinchuuriki weren't normal humans.

Orochimaru did a few seals. All ten of his fingers lit up in a purple flame. "Never did I ever think that I would face off against two Jinchuuriki at once."

Naruto crouched low to the ground and held his hands out in front of him. The bo staff on his back forgotten. Fu made a few handseals and water burst into being onto her hands into the shapes of swords.

All three of them stood there quietly until a leaf floated leisurely from the canopy in the middle between them. The moment it passed below the branch that Naruto and Fu were standing on, they leapt forward at the snake man.

00000000

Sakura sat up in pain. She clutched her head almost immediately. It felt like a drummer was violently pounding her head from the inside. Sakura groaned out in pain softly.

Almost as soon as she made that grunt of pain, a Naruto rushed to her side and started up the Mystic Palm technique. The pain began to fade in small increments.

"Naruto?" She asked. The last thing she could remember was being violently flung away from Sasuke. After that, there was a sharp sensation of pain and her world went black.

"Don't worry. We saved you." He said quietly. "You hit your head on something when that snake guy flung you away. You might have a concussion."

Indeed, her world felt fuzzy and unfocused. "Sasuke?" She whispered.

"Don't worry, he's… alive. We have your teammate too." Sakura nodded and took a look around her surroundings. It was dark, for one. The only light being a hole directly in front of her that filtered in some sunlight. She ran her hand on the surface of where she was sitting. It was smooth and hard but didn't have the frigidness that stone had, marking it as wood.

"Where are we?" the pinkette asked

A bout of coughing directed her attention to the left of her. Temari was struggling to regain her breath while sitting propped up against the room's wall. Naruto made over to check on her, but she waved him off. "We- *cough* we're in a tree hollow." She said with a raspy voice.

"Don't talk." Naruto ordered.

The Suna nin waved him off once more, but didn't speak up. Sakura looked around the space again to see if there was any sign of Sasuke. Spotting a shock of black hair and a grimacing face, she tried to get up and check on him, but Naruto forced her down.

"Don't worry, he's fine for now. You have to rest." She hung her head down and leaned back against the wall.

"How did you find us?" She whispered

"Mine and Fu's plan was to make a lot of traps and get the animals from the teams we trap. One of the clones setting up a trap saw Sasuke's fight and dispelled to tell me."

"How long has it been?"

Naruto seemed conflicted for a moment. "About… an hour I guess. It's kind of hard to tell time here, but Fu and the original should definitely be back here by now."

"The original?"

"I'm just a clone. The other two dispelled a while ago to alert the original how it's going… but he and Fu aren't back yet."

Sasuke started to yell half-heartedly in his sleep and thrash around. The clone swore and got up to check on him.

"Is Sasuke okay?" she asked.

Naruto took a while to answer. "I don't know. That freak did something to him and now there's this weird seal on his neck messing up his chakra system. Unless he gets a sealing expert soon…" Naruto trailed off.

Sakura nodded. They passed time like that for a while. Naruto trying to keep Sasuke calm and not dead, Temari trying not to take in large breaths and upset her sore lungs, and Sakura keeping her eyes closed and not in the sunlight.

'It wasn't supposed to be like this.' Sakura thought to herself.

There were a couple of knocks at the opening of the tree. One large one followed by a pause and two soft ones. Naruto started at first, but soon relaxed. "Anko?"

An ungainly figure stepped into view and was silhouetted against the light. Sakura soon figured out that the ungainliness came from the fact that it was carrying a body on its back. "Hey kid." It said. The voice matched the scary proctor lady and Naruto's different sensei, Anko.

The clone walked up to Anko urgently and gingerly took the body from off her back. Naruto laid her down and started the Mystic Palm for diagnostics. Sakura couldn't tell from where she was, but the body definitely wasn't the original's.

"Christ." The clone said, stupefied by what it was seeing. "Did he put this weird cell on her too?"

Anko shook her head. "You're a clone right? Then you'll know what happened eventually."

"What happened to Fu and the original?"

Anko took a deep breath and leaned against the tree's inner wall. "Only Fu was fighting Orochimaru when I showed up. He did something to her seal and vanished when I confronted him. Seeing as this is a… 'unique' situation we're in, I decided it was probably okay to show some instructor bias and get her back to your base."

"How did you know where our base was?"

"I followed you through scent."

"Then you can find the original?"

She shook her head. "The scent was gone from the place. He probably got taken out by a wind jutsu."

"Then, am I… dead?"

"So long as the original is alive, the clones will continue to be powered until they run out of chakra or the caster is dead."

"…Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Why do you ask?"

Even from her point of view, Sakura could tell that Anko was acting abnormally. She was speaking in clipped tones and said everything with a pensive countenance. "You're not acting like you normally do."

Anko realized her mistake and smiled all too quickly while putting her hand to her neck in an embarrassed manner. "I'm fine, I really am." She glanced to the direction of where Sasuke was laying. "So how's the Uchiha doing?"

"He's not dead. There's that at least."

"You don't know the half of it. The mortality rate of those with the curse seal is one in ten." Upon seeing the look of horror on Naruto's face, she quickly reiterated "But don't worry, if he's made it this far then he'll pull through." Anko walked inside to get a better sense of the place and nearly tripped on a body.

"Who's this?"

"Him? He's Sasuke's teammate. I found him on the forest floor. He's in a coma, but I don't know why or for how long he's going to be in it."

"Who else is here?"

Naruto gestured to Sakura and Temari. "Sakura and Temari. They tried to help Sasuke before me."

She nodded to herself as if she was confirming something. "Are you okay here?"

The clone nodded.

"Okay good, because I need to head out and warn the hokage. Stay safe, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Anko stepped out of the hole in the tree and hopped away. The clone sighed. "I hope the original comes back soon."

00000000

Eight hours later.

Naruto (the original) blearily opened his eyes to the world. They looked around for a second, trying to comprehend what they were looking at. Soon, the blurs of light refocused into refined dots of sunlight shining through rustling leaves.

The birds were chirping. The trees swayed gently in the breeze. Naruto caught a glimpse of small bunnies running through the brush with nary a care in the world.

Despite his calm and peaceful surroundings, he felt like shit.

No, that was an understatement. He felt like shit that had been steamrolled into asphalt, spewed up with chain wheels, and picked at by dung beetles. If there was a word to describe that exact feeling, he would be feeling it now.

From his position on his back, Naruto pulled his arms up and summoned the energy and willpower to put his hands into seals and create the Mystic Palm Technique. Naruto's hands fell on his chest with an imperceptible OOMPH. The only thing he focused on was manipulating his internal chakra to stimulate the hit cells to help to heal the major bruising on his chest and torso. Once that was done to a suitable degree, he moved onto his arms and finally his legs.

Naruto got up with a little bit of difficulty. His aches and pains might have been diminished, but he was still exhausted. A grumbling sound was heard from his gastrointestinal system. He was also hungry.

The Jinchuuriki looked around him to see if he could get his bearings while taking out a ration pack that Fu had packed and opening it. The last thing he remembered was getting grabbed in the gut by Orochimaru with those purple flamy things on his fingers, after that, he succumbed to unconsciousness.

Naruto's eyes widened. "Fu." He whispered out to himself. Naruto ran to the tree nearest him and climbed all the way up to its very tip to get a lookout. He passed branches that had been broken along the way to the top. He didn't really know what to do with that information.

Once he reached the top, he tried to spy anything that might denote where he was. But there was only a sea of treetops stretched out before him. Naruto grumbled worriedly. Last he remembered, Fu was still fighting that guy and needed help.

If he could have sank to his knees out of a sense of helplessness, he would have. Being at the exact tip of a large tree hampered his ability to do so however.

'Okay, okay. Think! I can do this. I can find Fu and save her from that guy. I just need to find her first… Damn it! I should have asked Anko about what she knows about tracking… trying to find Fu here would be like finding a needle in a haystack.'

Naruto hugged the twig that was the top of the tree and sighed out of frustration. Listlessly, Naruto tapped the pouch which held onto the venomous snake he was holding onto. Not getting any response, Naruto unzipped it and pulled out what was inside. The snake's spine was broken in many places. It didn't take a medic nin in training to realize that the snake was undeniably dead. Disgusted and frustrated, Naruto threw the snake off to crash into the canopy on its way down.

Naruto rezipped the bag, not knowing what else he could do in this situation. But his hand brushed against something square and solid on his right thigh. Naruto's eyes widened in realization. 'The book! Of course! I'm so stupid. I've probably racked up so many points by now.'

The Jinchuuriki sank down the tree until he was sitting on a branch that could hold his weight. Opening the book up, he clicked through the achievements that flashed by without any care as to what they might be or what they might do. Then he rapidly tapped all the experience box windows that popped up, telling him all that he had done to get them and finished by impatiently looking at his level.

'Level 8. That means… 1 merit point! Yes!' Naruto flipped to the merit point section, hoping that the skill he was looking for was unlocked. He spied the box he was looking for, a light gray against a sea of dark gray.

_Sense of the ninken:_

_You gain the sensory equivalent of the ninja dog. A nose that is capable of smelling things so accurately to the point where you could track them, ears that can hear twice as far as normal humans, and taste that is slightly more enhanced._

_Requires: 1 merit point_

_Pre-Requisites: Large influence with at least one ninken based clan member._

Naruto immediately tapped the button, spending his one merit point on the skill. Other than a tingling in his nose and a high pitched whine, Naruto didn't feel any different for the few seconds that those went on.

Immediately, Naruto was pulled into a new world of senses. As he breathed, he could tell the faint subtleties that the world was comprised of. The scent of berry's mixed in with wild animal that had climbed exactly where he was sitting minutes earlier. He could hear the sound of faint tussling from animals he could only guess were yards below on the ground. Now that Naruto could feel all the things that he couldn't earlier, he almost couldn't believe that he had went on happy with senses as dull as before.

Naruto clambered up into standing position. Now all he had to do was run around and get Fu's scent and follow her to the base. 'Oh wait... What does she smell like?'

Naruto heard a scream from somewhere behind. He wasn't used at all to his newfound senses, so he couldn't perceive the distance at all.

_Random Encounter! Save Karin_

_Reward: merit unlocked: Sensory ninjutsu, +15 medical ninjutsu form._

'What's sensory ninjutsu?'

00000000

Karin Uzumaki scrambled away from the bear behind her. A root caught hold of her ankle and as she tried to pull it forward, she heard a snapping sound emanate from behind her.

Karin took in a sharp intake of breath as she fell forward with a gasp. She tried to crawl forward, but her broken ankle prohibited that. Air refused to come into her lungs. Shock prevented her diaphragm from flexing.

Karin propped herself onto her back and was met face to snout with the giant, two-story tall bear in front of her. She wanted to scream, but she didn't have the air in her lungs to do so.

Its great jaws opened and a caustic smelling breath emanated from its inner gullet. The massive chest cavity extended and wind pulled her hair forward with the air that was being drawn into the bear's gullet.

It looked like it was going to roar, but was cut short when a blonde male fell from the canopy and whipped it on the top of its head with a bo staff. The force of the hit made the head fall forward to the ground and impact with a muted thud. The bear growled and tried to reach out and hit the male, but was smacked across the face more times than it could count in the space of 10 seconds. Eventually, the bear drew backward and thrashed out blindly.

Naruto took advantage of this and ran through its legs, throwing senbon at the tendons that bulged out of its legs all the way. He never would have been able to accurately hit the tendons on a human target, but these were much larger and visible.

The beast roared again and fell backwards. It scrambled back to its feet and ran away from the blonde, limping all the way. Naruto turned to the fallen girl to make sure she was alright. "You okay?"

"E-e-e-e-eh… Y-Yeah. I think so." She said absentmindedly. Karin tried to get up, but her broken ankle prevented her from doing so. She seemed almost confused by the sudden pain in her ankle. The pain started out slow, but built in intensity to the point where she had to lay back down and quietly moan in pain. "oohh. Ooh damn it. This really hurts." She said through clenched teeth. "This really really REALLY hurts."

Naruto knelt down by her leg and started up the Mystic Palm technique. His hands hovered gently over the wound, only analyzing it for now. "Damn it." Naruto mumbled to himself.

"What's wrong?" Karin asked with her eyelids screwed shut.

"Oh nothing." Naruto ripped a few strands of fabric from his shirt and tied them together into a bundle. "Say ahhh." Naruto ordered calmly.

Karin only had the mental faculties to do the barest things that humans are capable of doing under high stress situations, taking orders without question so long as it didn't aggravate her wound.

Naruto's hands resumed their hovering over her ankle once the bundle of fabric was in her mouth. "W-Wah're vhoo gooing? (What are you doing?)"

"This is going to hurt." Naruto warned before taking a sudden hold of her foot and twisting it back into place.

Karin's eyes widened and then screwed shut once more as she silently screamed through the bundle of fabric she was clenching onto with her teeth. Naruto began the Mystic Palm once more and tried to soothe the blaring nerves in her ankle.

Tears stung her eyes and the screams became less enthused as the pain decreased. Once it was down to a manageable level, she practically melted back to the forest floor, exhausted beyond belief.

Naruto half frowned at the girl in front of him. He grabbed a hold of her torso and dragged her into a sitting position at a nearby tree. The bundle of fabric that she was holding onto loosely with her jaw was hanging limply from her lips. Naruto pinched the end of it and threw it away into the growth. "Are you okay?" Naruto asked again. "Any other injuries?"

Karin shook her head tiredly "Who are you? Why are you helping me?"

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki and I'm helping you because one, it's the right thing to do, and two, I was hoping that you could tell me if you've seen my partner."

She shook her head. "I haven't seen anyone other than you ever since the test commenced."

Naruto sighed in disappointment. "Never mind then."

"Wait, you're a Jinchuuriki right?"

Naruto nearly threw his hands up in the air in surprise and indignation. "Does everyone and their dog know that I'm a Jinchuuriki?"

She chuckled airlessly from that. "No, I'm a sensor. Your chakra is really warm by the way, but there's a dark, malignant chakra in your gut."

"Sounds about right. Wait, you can sense where Jinchuuriki are? Then you can tell me where my partner is!"

"Is-Is your partner a Jinchuuriki too?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, hold on then." She brought both her hands together in a seal unfamiliar to Naruto and began to channel her chakra. After a few seconds of deliberations, she finally said "There are two more Jinchuuriki taking the test. One is about 2 kilometers to the right of here and the other is about half a kilometer straight ahead."

"Which one is my partner?"

She shrugged. "The one to the left is in the same general vicinity as jonin level chakra signatures, so I guess that one's already finished. Your teammate should be the one straight ahead." She pointed in the vague direction of where Fu and the rest of the gang were.

"Great! Do you know if she's in trouble or anything?"

"It's not moving. So she's either resting or unconscious."

"Thank you so much, but I need to run and help her out. Do you need help getting in a tree or something?"

She waved him off. "Nah, it's fine. That bear killed my teammate, so I'll probably get picked up by the proctors soon. Plus, I just really need to… close my eyes… for a few…" Karin's head tilted to the side and her breathing normalized. She was dead asleep.

Naruto wanted to move her to a safer position, but time was of the essence. Fu might be in trouble and he could be the only person that could save her. Naruto took off in the position that Karin pointed towards.

'Now that I have a better nose, all I need to do is get somewhere around where Fu is and I'll get her scent… hopefully. I still don't know how this whole 'tracking through scent' thing works.'

Nevertheless, he was a man on a mission and nothing would stop him from helping his partner.

00000000

"What the fuck do you mean 'ambush'?" Kurotsuchi asked caustically. "We have all three animals. We can head to the tower now!"

Dosu Kinuta's one showing eye lazily directed itself to face her. "I mean that I have a mission to carry out and to do that, I need to draw the Uchiha away from the tree." He said derisively.

"Pray tell, what is this mission? It sounds stupid as fuck! We can leave!"

Dosu turned away from her. "I'm going to fulfill my mission to my master. You can or cannot come along with me. I don't really care." He walked away, ending the conversation.

Kurotsuchi huffed and started to walk brusquely up to him and look at the tree which caught his eye. "If I'm going to advance, I need you alive. Now how are we going to do this, dumbass?"

"First we wait for my other teammates. Kin and Zaku. Actually, I believe that your friend Akatsuchi was paired with Zaku."

"That's good at least. What about the other one?"

"Some no name medic nin from Konoha."

Kurotsuchi remained silent for a while. "If shit goes sideways, I just want to remind you that this was all your idea."

"Noted."

**AN/ Not much to say, Read and Review, have a gentlemanly day and all that.**

_Excerpts from Naruto: the game, Walkthrough hand guide._

_The attribute system and or how it relates to the teacher system:_

_The attribute system is comprised of a series of skills that all have a numeric value impressed upon them. The higher the number in relation to the maximum points available to learn in a certain subject is directly correlated to how well one does in that certain field._

_Once one reaches the maximum level, there are a few choices presented to the player. Sometimes this can be something where the player gets to choose 2 from 5 options, only gets 1 option and 1 choice, or just gets the whole motley of options. _

_These options can be anything from another skill to special trait that has something to do with the skill in question. It should also be noted that this is very similar to the crafting system._

_Whenever the player levels up, he or she receives a certain number of attribute points according to their level. These points can be put into the skill of their choosing to give them a significant boost in either knowledge or ability or both in that subject. _

_The player can also gain attribute points by just learning the skill through practice and training. This can be modified by the teacher or teachers that the player is under at the time. Status of being a student is in the skills section of the guidebook. _

_Also note that the teacher can only give benefits in training from what they already know. So if you reach or outpace them in their field, you will no longer receive the multiplier that they have to offer. The multiplier has no effect on the allocation and value of the points gained from leveling up._


	11. a second exam pt 3

Chapter 11

She was wearing the standard genin garb that was usually worn by iwa shinobi. She had a rather androgynous figure from behind, the only thing giving away her gender being her voice, which was being used to mumble to herself. She had short black hair and was very distressed if her stance and posture were any indicator.

Naruto was on a branch behind her. She was kneeling down and covered by foliage from the front, but was open to prying eyes from behind. There were grunts and sounds of battle going on below her, which she seemed to be obviously trying to get a vantage point on.

After running away from the girl who snapped her ankle, he quickly caught a scent of strawberries, snakes, and beetles. It was difficult to place the scent of both beetles and snakes, but Naruto likened it to placing a voice that you've known all your life to a face. Naruto recognized the particular scent of strawberry as the shampoo that Sakura used. He then continued to follow the scent along the branches until he got to the place where he was, behind the unassuming iwa genin.

He was close to home base, he knew this much for sure. So the fight that she was watching and he couldn't get a clear view of was probably one going on with Fu and the rest of the group. That, or extreme circumstance.

Naruto wasn't much in the vein of slitting throats when it could be avoided, so he started looking for other ways to take the kunoichi out. Noticing that by her side were three diagonal lines parallel to each other, mimicking claw marks on the trunk next to her. That was the sign that he had placed a trap up ahead.

Smirking, he jumped onto the branch that she was on and palmed her back. "Sorry." He whispered before shoving her out of the tree and into the trap ahead of her. She snapped a line of string from her descent, prompting a contraption of wire and rope to burst out of the surrounding foliage and wrap her to a thick tree trunk upside down.

From this vantage point, he was afforded a clear view of the battle below him. There seemed to be a lull in the fight, as there were three people looking at three other people opposite them. Fu, that Sand chick, and Sakura were all facing off against a guy wrapped in bandages with a metal gauntlet on his arm, some kid with a cocky smirk on his face, and a nerdy looking guy with silver hair and glasses. Off in the surrounding, there was a heavy iwa kid being suspended by a rope with both his hands tied behind him and a girl who was hanging limply from a rope wrapped around one of her ankles. There was blood dripping from a head wound, she was probably knocked out. Fu didn't have her trademark water swords, Temari looked out of breath, and Sakura was swaying dangerously.

Pushing the iwa chick into the trap might have taken her out, but she was still able to make sounds, evident from when she immediately started screaming obscenities at him. The seven sets of eyes all looked up at the new event in surprise. The cocky kid raised an arm and pointed it his newly gained vantage point. A sonic boom resonated from his palm, forcing Naruto to jump out of the tree or be hit by a shockwave.

By pure happenchance, Naruto ended up on a crash course directly for the silver haired nerd. Trying to salvage the situation, he took a hold of his bo staff and brought it down onto him. Showing prowess in taijutsu, Kabuto leaned to the side and sent a kick towards Naruto. Still being in the air, Naruto wasn't able to maneuver away from the kick and decided to block it instead with his arm.

The leg hit his arm and forced Naruto to the side. It stung like a motherfucker, but there was no loss of mobility. A shadow fell upon him as Dosu ran up and sent a straight punch for Naruto's head. He ducked under the punch, but his world view shifted for some reason. He crumpled inwards, no longer able to tell what was up and what was down.

Dosu lifted his leg and tried to stomp downwards, but was hit with a gust of wind and launched to the side. Naruto shook his head, trying to reorient himself fruitlessly. The cocky kid ran up to Naruto and sent a sonic boom his way.

Naruto was only able to go into fetal position and weathered the hit. He got hit dead on and he was sent tumbling away from Zaku. When he rolled to a stop, Naruto brought his hands together in the familiar cross-shaped seal. Stumbling Narutos poofed into existence around him. The silver haired one charged Naruto, expecting an easy fight from the clones.

Although they were a stumbling mess, with all of them together all wielding a bo staff, giving them longer reach, they were able to hold Kabuto off for the amount of time it took Naruto to shakily get to his feet and get his bearings.

When Kabuto hit the last clone straight in the chest, dispelling it, he ducked under a barrage of senbon. He managed to dodge the most of them, but a few lodged themselves into his forearms. While he was distracted with Naruto, Fu ran up to him from behind and grabbed his neck. She brought a knee into his back using his neck as a handhold.

Kabuto crumpled forward and began writhing on the ground with foam beginning to come out of his mouth. She had at the very least reoriented a few of his vertebrae, if she hadn't completely snapped it.

They shared a momentary glance. Naruto desperately wanted to talk to her about the fact that she was a Jinchuuriki as well, but they had more pressing matters to attend to. Fu ran off to help Sakura against Dosu and Naruto ran off to help Temari with Zaku.

For the most part, their prowess was evenly matched. Zaku's jutsu used the air as a medium to impart shockwaves to his opponent, while Temari used her fan to change the medium itself, making her capable of redirecting the shockwave.

Naruto created a series of clones around him, who all rushed at Zaku. He only looked Naruto's way for half a second before sending a few blasts to completely destroy all of the clones. This opened him up to from a blast of air, which clipped him in the side and sent him sprawling to the side. Naruto capitalized on this moment of distraction and ran at the downed kid, throwing senbon all the way.

He seemed pretty good at batting away the senbon moving at high velocities, almost as if he fought someone who used them regularly. Although as he did this, he wasn't able to use his shockwaves properly.

Naruto came up close to him and drew his bo staff downwards, hoping to end the fight by knocking him out. Zaku, instead of trying to dodge, brought one of his arms up and blocked the blow. He then used his free hand to palm Naruto's stomach.

Naruto wasn't too sure what happened next. One moment he was in front of Zaku, trying to overpower him with the bo staff, the next he was pressed up against a tree about 7 meters away from him. Blood rose through his esophagus and he spat it out with what little breath he had in his lungs. Naruto tried to move his limbs, but they were sluggish and unresponsive.

Zaku smirked at Temari. "Looks like the cavalry has been taken out."

Purple tipped senbon sprouted out of his back. Zaku looked confused for a second before falling forward onto the ground. A strange puppet fell downward from the canopy and impaled the sound genin with four knives protruding from four arms. Zaku died immediately.

"Aren't you glad that your brother is here?"

Temari could have laughed in relief if her lungs didn't feel like they were on fire. "You always did have the strangest sense of timing."

Across the way, Kiba and Fu were fighting Dosu head on. Sakura had fallen ill from Dosu's gauntlet a little before Kiba showed up and was on the ground a safe distance away from them. Kiba turned and spiraled into the sound genin's back while Fu roundhouse kicked him in the chest directly opposite where the gatsuuga was hitting him.

Dosu coughed up blood, staining the bandages on his face and fell to the ground, thoroughly unconscious.

"Dogboy! Your friend isn't looking too good!" Kankuro shouted out from where Naruto lay.

Kiba growled. Fu was wobbly on her feet from exhaustion and sound based attacks, so Kiba offered her his shoulder to lean on while they walked to the downed Naruto.

When they got there, there was a clone tending to his wounds. Nothing visible was being treated, but there was still an intense look of concentration upon its brow. After a little bit, the green flared up in intensity before petering out. The clone huffed in amusement and said "Look's I'm finally out of chakra" before poofing out of existence.

The original's eyes fluttered open. "Medic." He moaned out before chuckling a little. "Oh, wait. I'm the medic."

"Naruto." Fu said worriedly.

Naruto waved her off. "Oh don't worry. I know how to treat internal wounds." But that was only because of the medial ninjutsu form boost he got from that Karin girl. Looks like it was a _really_ good idea to save her now. He looked off to where Kabuto was supposed to be laying. "Hey Fu, didn't you take out that nerd over there?"

Fu looked to where Naruto was indicating and became silent. "…yeah… I think I did."

Just as she finished saying that, purple flames spewed out of the tree trunk that housed Sasuke and his teammate.

00000000

_Branches whipped across her face leaving angry red scratch marks. Normally, she'd travel at a pace that allowed her to either avoid the branches or just push them out of her way. She didn't have that kind of time. Her sensei had infiltrated the second stages of the exam and was most likely messing shit up._

_This was _her_ exam. This was _her_ forest. She wasn't going to let that snake bastard take it away from her. No fucking way._

_A wafting aroma hit her tongue, almost making her gag. A fact not known by many is that Anko had nearly the same tracking power as the common Inuzuka, but this came from her snake-like attributes. Namely, the extraordinarily powerful taste buds on her tongue that let her taste the scent in the air much like snakes do. The thing she was smelling smelled like someone had put a boa constrictor, a gallon of tar, and rotting flesh into an industrial sized blender and waited for it to smoke out and die._

_Not a pleasant scent at all._

_There was a scream of pain directly in front of her. Evidently, she was going the right way._

_She arrived just in time to see Orochimaru toss aside a young girl on the branch he was standing on. It looked as if a dark blue tint to her skin was being drained into a seal on her back._

"_You fucking bastard." Anko said quietly. _

_Orochimaru turned slowly to face her. "Anko-chan? Is that you? Oh my, how you've grown."_

_Anko screamed in frustration and threw her arms up to let snakes flow from the sleeves on her trench coat in torrents. They all hit Orochimaru directly in the midsection and tied him to the tree he was standing on. "Who. Is. The. Girl?" She asked, enunciating each word dangerously._

_Orochimaru didn't seem very afflicted by her anger. "Just a very powerful, very uneducated little girl."_

_Now that the tint had gone from her skin, leaving a heavily tanned shade on it, Anko recognized the girl. It was Fu. The green haired girl who was Naruto's partner… Naruto wasn't with her._

"_What the fuck did you do to Naruto?" she hissed, constricting the snakes around his midsection to the point where any normal man would have trouble breathing._

_Orochimaru was not affected by the tightening of the snakes. "Oh yes, of course you'd want to know what happened to your apprentice. Well, _student_ I guess. That little rascal did say that you were rather… what was the word for it? Nitpicky about what you called him."_

_Anko continued to glower at her previous sensei. "What did you do to him?"_

"_He was a bit hot-headed, so I sent him on a trip." Orochimaru glanced up at a break in the canopy. There were broken branches surrounding it, allowing a neat little circle of light to break through._

_Anko roared in anger and flung herself at the snakes covering her sensei. She was accepted into their ranks immediately and she took a hold of his neck dangerously. "You tell me what you did to him, or I KILL BOTH OF US!"_

_Orochimaru tutted at his little former apprentice in disappointment. "Anko, Anko, Anko. Didn't I instruct you on how to not fall into such obvious traps?" The Orochimaru she was grasping turned to mud in her grasp._

_Orochimaru appeared from the tree behind her. "You've got a good _student_ Anko-chan. A little stupid, but brave nonetheless. Oh, and by the way. If the exams are held up at all from my presence, I'll burn Konoha to the ground." With that, Orochimaru sunk into the branch and disappeared._

_The snakes that she was surrounded by returned to her sleeves. She fell to the branch on her ass and laid down it. Too many emotions were raging in her mind to even think about movement._

"_FUCK YOU, YOU PEDOPHILIC BASTARD!" She roared to the heavens and anyone who might be watching her._

_Anko's head lolled to the side, allowing a good view of Fu writhing on the ground in pain. She'd have to help her out at some point. Proctor impartiality be damned at this juncture._

The door behind her opened, snapping her out of her reverie. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage of the Hidden Leaf village walked up to the seat behind the desk opposite to her. His face was downtrodden and his posture stiff, no doubt from having to deal with the information that his previous student was in Konoha and messing up the exams.

Hiruzen sighed a very long sigh and placed a single document on the table. "… First of all, I'd like to thank you on behalf of all of Konoha for what you've done in alerting me about Orochimaru sneaking into the exams. Secondly… are you sure that you want to do this?"

"Yup." Anko stated in a bit of a chipper tone.

Hiruzen leveled a semi-serious glare at her. "I expect a serious answer. Taking on an apprentice is no small responsibility… I know about your past and that you've been reluctant to teach other students before, even going so far as to refuse promotion so you wouldn't be obligated to teach a team of genin. Did Orochimaru say something to you? And if so, I demand to know what it was."

Anko's face turned slightly more serious, but still had an air of triviality about it. "…For most of my life, I've been scared. Scared that I'd let my sensei down, then I was scared that I'd let other people down, now I'm scared that I'll let Naruto down. But I realized something when I talked to Orochimaru. That even though he screwed me up." She paused to subconsciously touch the curse mark directly on her neck. "That doesn't mean that I have to screw someone else up. That doesn't mean that I _will_ screw someone else up."

"I do hope that this isn't a selfish desire to get back at Orochimaru." Hiruzen implied.

Anko waved him off. "It's not just that… I… I really think that Naruto and I are a lot alike. Something happened to both of us that was beyond our control, and because of that, the entire world decided to shit down our throats."

Hiruzen cringed a little from the disgusting image that popped up in his head. "That being said, I created team 7 on my own. I balanced them in the way that I thought would be best. If I allow you to remove Naruto from that, there will be an upset about it. I have to have complete confidence that your teaching of Naruto will not be detrimental to him."

Anko sat up a little straighter in the seat she was in. "You can count on me to teach Naruto in the most expedient and safest way possible. Trust me when I say that I will be the best sensei that he's ever had."

After careful consideration, the Third pushed the document to Anko so she could sign it. Apprenticeship was actually a fairly important thing in the shinobi world. Most would just create the bond orally, but for people who wanted to make sure that they had legal rights over their student, they usually went for a signed document. The document stated that Anko had limited control over his life. Things like his diet, or his training regimen. But if she was ever caught misusing this power, then she'd be thrown into jail.

This was put into place after a sensei decided that it was good training technique to hang a kid over a pond of piranhas and let him figure out how to escape from it. Needless to say, after that day, Konoha was down one genin and was quickly drafting new apprenticeship laws

The bond between apprentice and master was a very close one as well. Once she signed that document, she was almost required to be around him for most of the day, doing her best to impart what she could of her shinobi knowledge onto him. It's a bond that many consider closer than that of a child and parent, or a brother and sister, or even that of lovers. In fact, many apprenticeships end up in more than intimate relationships. Like Hayate and Yugao for example.

As soon as her signature fell on that piece of paper, she was taking the full legal responsibility and rights that a legal guardian would have.

"Remember Anko, he has to give you his express permission and desire to become your official apprentice. You can't influence his choice."

Anko Mitarashi completed signing the document with a grin on her face. "Don't worry about that Hokage-sama. I'm sure that he'll say yes."

He nodded at her. "Yes, I'm sure he will."

00000000

"What the fuck is going on?" Kiba whispered to Naruto.

Naruto tilted his head back at Kiba. "No clue. Oi! Sasuke! Put the nerd down!"

Dark black flame patterns danced around Sasuke's body, or at least his visible skin. He didn't seem to either hear what Naruto was saying, or care at all. Once the purple flames petered out from the trunk, Sasuke had jumped down from it to the ground with his hands encircled around Kabuto's neck. Naruto didn't know when or how the silver haired nerd was able to get up there, seeing as he shouldn't be able to walk, but now wasn't necessarily the time to be questioning things.

"I-I-I'll pay you. T-There's a slug in my pouch. I-It's all-" Sasuke interrupted him by taking a firm grasp of the pouch on his hip and tearing it off to throw it to Naruto. Naruto caught it gingerly and laid it to the side. So Sasuke was aware that they were there and saying stuff to him, he just didn't care was all.

"What do we do now?" Kiba asked.

"I don't know."

Temari and Kankuro looked at the scene unfolding in front of them with dull eyes. "Fucking leaf nin." Kankuro whispered.

"Fucking leaf nin." Temari said in agreement.

Sasuke looked at the fellow leaf nin in front of him, cowering in fear as Sasuke held him by the neck and glared at him. Sakura groaned off to the side. There was blood streaming out of her ears and vomit covering the lower half of her face. Sasuke's eyes were momentarily diverted to the scene of pettiness and went straight back to Kabuto.

"Did you do that to her?" he whispered menacingly.

Kabuto stuttered out his response, which was incomprehensible from the fear plaguing him by the mere presence of Sasuke.

"I bet you're real proud of this brain of yours." Sasuke whispered. "Coming up with plans, hurting my teammates." Sasuke jerked his hands to the side. The sound of a rotten branch covered in a few layers of cloth breaking in two filled the air as Sasuke snapped the neck of Kabuto.

Sakura's eyes widened fear and surprise and disgust. "SASUKE!" Sakura scrambled up to her feet and tried her best to get to her teammate, who was now fast approaching the downed Dosu. Before he reached him, Sakura launched herself at Sasuke and grabbed a hold of his midsection.

"Sakura!" Naruto shouted out. Sasuke stopped in his tracks and looked at Sakura with disinterested eyes. She started bawling out apologies and speeches about how he wasn't acting like he normally would. It seemed to have an effect on him, as the flames on his body turned red and retreated inwards to form the curse seal exactly similar to that of Anko's. Sasuke fell forward unconscious as soon as the process was over. Naruto spawned a clone to check up on him, not wanting to be around if it happened again.

"That was intense." Kiba said.

Naruto nodded wordlessly. "Thanks for the save by the way. We'd have been screwed if you two didn't save us."

Kankuro pointed at Kiba. "It was all dogboy's idea. The only reason I helped out was because my sister was about to die horribly if I didn't intervene."

"Really Kiba? You didn't have to risk your life for us. Thanks a lot for doing it! I mean, you saved us. But still, you got put in danger."

Kiba looked at Naruto like he was an idiot. "Of course I helped you, you idiot! You saved Akamaru when I couldn't do anything. Helping you out with the fight wasn't even the reason why I decided to find you." Kiba opened his ninja pouch and took out three smaller pouches, one of which was squirming uncomfortably. "Look, man. I know that I can't do anything that could set us even for you saving Akamaru, but this is a start right?"

"Are those…?"

"Yup. A slug, a toad, and a snake. You'd be amazed how many people just drop their animals. It's a good thing that these things have a specific scent too."

"You got those on your own. We can't take these."

Kiba patted his bulging ninja pouch, which squirmed around some more. "Like I said, you'd be amazed at how many people just drop their animals. Plus, what am I going to do with 3 extra animals? Comrades helping comrades out is what comrades do." Kiba said firmly before pushing the 3 extra animals into Naruto's arms.

"Dude… thanks man."

"You two can finish your little bro time later." Kankuro interrupted. "Standing out in the open isn't helping our chances of survival."

Kiba nodded. "You should come with us. It'll help everyone's chances of not dying."

Naruto didn't look too sure. "I don't know. Teme is still out of it. He might need a medic or something."

"Does he have the three animals?"

"He has the snake and toad…" Naruto looked at the little pouch by his feet that used to belong to the now dead leaf nin. "And now he has the slug. The tower probably has better medical people than me, so I should get him there. But what about Sakura?"

"I can take care of her." Temari said. "She's just a little out of it from that sound guy's gauntlet thing."

Naruto nodded and spawned a few clones. One of them climbed the tree to the home base, while the other went and collected Sasuke. Soon, Naruto, Fu, Kankuro, and Kiba with Sasuke and the comatose kusa nin on the backs of Naruto clones were about to take off.

"Naruto." Sakura said. "Please, take care of him."

Naruto smiled brightly at her. "Don't worry about it Sakura-chan. I'm not going to let teme die. If he died, I wouldn't be able to kick his ass."

Sakura smiled half-heartedly and watched as the three departed.

"Oi! What about me?" Kurotsuchi shouted out from her position of being stuck to the tree trunk.

00000000

About 4 days later.

After everything was said and done, there were 11 teams that made it. A total of one sixth the original amount. The teams consisted of Hinata and Neji, Shikamaru and Karui, Lee and Samui, Ino and Omoi, Tenten and Fujitsu, Gaara and Takkana, Temari and Sakura, Naruto and Fu, Sasuke and Unimportant, Kurotsuchi and Dosu, and Kiba and Kankuro.

The last ones to arrive were Kurotsuchi and Dosu, and Sakura and Temari. Sakura's lack of presence up until the last day really made Naruto worried, but it allowed for a more heartfelt reunion.

Well, it depends on whose definition of heartfelt is being used.

Dosu and Unimportant were still unconscious, so it was decided that Kurotsuchi and Sasuke would come together to make one team while the other two were being treated. Sasuke wasn't seen much though, Kakashi had taken him to treat the curse seal and he hadn't been seen since until recently.

Once they were sure that they were finally alone, Fu and Naruto had been able to talk a few days ago.

_Night had finally set on the Forest of Death. Luckily for two Jinchuuriki, they were comfortable and cozy in a bunk bed. Teams were required to sleep in the same room with each other. Sometimes there was a queen size, two twins, or a bunk bed like what Naruto and Fu had._

"_Pssst. Hey Fu."_

_No response._

"_Pssst. You awake?"_

"_Yeah." She answered meekly._

"_Why didn't you say you were a Jinchuuriki?"_

_Fu leaned over the top bunk where she was situated at and glared playfully at Naruto in the darkness. "Why didn't _you_ say that you were a Jinchuuriki?" They both laughed. Not out of anything particularly funny, more out of a relief that they finally confirmed what they saw when fighting Orochimaru._

_When they stopped laughing and fell silent, Fu asked. "Which one do you have?"_

"_Kyuubi. What about you?"_

"_Chomei."_

"_Chomei?"_

"_Chomei, the Nanabi."_

"_Wait, they have names?"_

"_Of course they have names. Haven't you talked to Kyuubi yet?"_

"_No. They can talk?"_

"_Of course they can talk. They're just like people, only… not."_

"_How do I talk to it?"_

_Fu was silent for a bit. "…Usually when you talk to them mentally, they talk back. But Chomei hasn't talked to me since we fought that really creepy Kusa nin."_

"_Yeah, my chakra control has been shot ever since we fought him too."_

"_You too? I can't form my water swords anymore. It sucks."_

"_That does sound like it sucks."_

_They both fell silent, not sure what they wanted to ask, not sure what they wanted to do now that they had the information that they were the same. That they were both Jinchuuriki._

_Naruto thought back to the prior evening. He had checked his book in more detail, finding that it had a new status effect described in it._

Five elements seal:

Description: the five elements seal is a powerful fuinjutsu technique which can disrupt the chakra flow of people it is used on. When it is applied to a seal that has an even amount of matrixes, like the eight trigram for example, it either nullifies or 'pauses' the usage of the seal.

Rewards: You can no longer use the Kyuubi's chakra. -10 chakra control.

_If Naruto were capable of betting anything, he'd bet that the five elements seal was the thing that Orochimaru used on him with those purple flamey fingers. Although he didn't remember anything after that other than Orochimaru starting a rather powerful wind technique._

_He hadn't done anything with the base points either. He didn't know what to do with them. On one hand, he should probably use it to up his chakra control back to normal, but he didn't know if the seal was a timed thing or something, which would make the venture rather worthless. Or he could focus on strength. The reason he got hit in the gut by Zaku's shockwave thing was because he couldn't overpower him using the bo staff immediately. Or maybe he should put it towards speed. The reason why Kabuto and Dosu were able to get the drop on him was because he wasn't fast enough._

_Difficult choices and all. He didn't even know what to do with the attribute points. The miscellaneous skills might mutate like the recipes did. But if he put points towards that, then he might be missing out on putting those points towards medical ninjutsu, or senbon, or bojutsu._

_He decided to wait on the spending of the points._

_There were also the quests to consider. He hadn't looked into the pamphlet for a while, because it hadn't had very many quests last time he checked. Now it was chock full of things. _

_Things like 'beat Lee in a fight before the exams are over', which got him a training spandex suit. Whatever that was. Or there was 'Get Kabuto's cards', which got him a boost in intelligence and an in-depth look into the next stage of the exam. He didn't even know who Kabuto was, much less how to get his cards. But the thing that garnered most of his attention was:_

Quest: Take Fu on a date.

Rewards: Depends on the quality of the date.

_So that meant that since he asked her out during the first exam, which he was only using as a way to get people talking, he could take her out on the date and get rewards for it. That begged the question of whether or not he got bonuses for asking other people out on dates._

"_Hey Fu?" Naruto asked suddenly._

"_Hm?"_

"_After we get out of here, what do you want to do for our date?"_

_Fu fell silent a little bit. "I was beginning to think that you only said that as a way to help us out during the first exam."_

"_I thought so too."_

"…_What?"_

"_Nothing. So where do you want to go?"_

"_I don't know. I've never been on a date before. What do people usually do?"_

"_Walk around a bit, see a movie or something, get dinner, then go home." Thank you Anko for seduction lessons. Looks like it's paying off in different ways than just that useless merit._

"…_Okay. I think I'd like that." Fu said._

"_Great." Naruto yawned widely, prompting Fu to do the same. "We should probably get some sleep." Naruto said quietly._

"_Yeah." Fu agreed. Although sleep didn't come to her easily that night. She was more than a little excited at the idea of going on a date with Naruto and was up most of the dark hours thinking about it._

There had also been that situation with Kiba. Naruto still didn't believe that it went the way it did.

_Kiba clapped Naruto on the back. "Looks like we made it." He, Kankuro, Naruto, and Fu were all waiting in the large, open space that held most of the personal inside. Apparently, further in there was a ping-pong table, a foosball table, a flat screen TV with gaming system, and a Dance Dance Revolution gaming set-up in a lounge area. Evidently, this tower was used often in the chunin exams and they didn't want to risk having shinobi getting bored and stir crazy._

_Sasuke and the comatose Kusa nin had been lifted off of him to be seen by professional help._

_Naruto's nose wrinkled inwards to itself. "Dude, I didn't want to mention it before, but you smell pretty terrible. Take a shower, yeah?"_

"_Well I have just been roughing it in the forest for a few days." Kiba said in deadpan._

"_No, I mean that you smell just really, really bad."_

"_What do I smell like?" Kiba asked, worried now. "Did I step in shit or something?" the dog user started checking his sandals for any sign of scat._

"_No, you smell like… balls, and sweat, and urine." Even with his newfound sensory greatness, Kiba's smell was so overpowering that he _had_ to smell like that to everyone else in the room._

_Fu stepped forward and tentatively sniffed the Inuzuka. "He doesn't smell that bad. Kind of like dog, but that's it."_

_Kiba looked at Naruto in confusion before his eyes narrowed imperceptivity. He brought Akamaru out his jacket and offered him to be smelled by Naruto. "What's Akamaru smell like?"_

"_Like… you, but mixed with blood."_

_Kiba put him back into his jacket and fished around his ninja pouch for a second. He presented a small spherical bundle wrapped in white cloth tied up in a knot at the top. "What's this smell like?"_

_It was a faint smell, one that Naruto had a tough time figuring out. "Like… purple."_

"_Purple?"_

"_Eh, you know… that flower. It's purple and helps you go to sleep."_

_Kiba half-frowned. "Lavender."_

"_That's the one! Why is this so important anyway?"_

"_Because only members of the Inuzuka clan should be able to smell the lavender. Everyone else doesn't smell anything." Fu leaned over and took a sniff as well, then looked at Naruto and shrugged._

_Oh no. Naruto's cover might be blown. "E-Eh, what are you talking about Kiba?"_

_Kiba started stroking his non-existent beard thoughtfully. "…Your last name is Uzumaki, right?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_But you're an orphan?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_Do you know who your parents were?"_

"_No."_

"_Then… there's a chance that you could be an Inuzuka. But all Inuzuka excrete a scent called musk from about the age of 8, which is what you smell on me. So… I don't know. I'll have to talk to my mom about this."_

"_Your mom?"_

"_She's the Inuzuka matriarch. She'll know what to do."_

"_Eh… what happens if I am an Inuzuka?"_

"_You might get accepted into the clan, or you just might get the honorary clan status, or nothing at all could happen. I guess there's a chance that your chakra just mutated that way."_

"_Mutated? Chakra mutates?"_

"_They talked about it in the academy. Weren't you listening?"_

"_You were?"_

_Kiba sighed into his palm. "It sounded interesting. Anyway, big picture is that humans get something wrong every once and a while when making other humans. You know, things like birth defects."_

"_Yeah."_

"_Well things go right just as often as they go wrong. You know, like a kid getting better muscle retention than his parents had the genes for."_

"_What?"_

"_Just keep listening for a second. The thing is, every so often, the things that make us, us, goes wrong and something different happens. Chakra is something that's highly mutable."_

"_So… I can smell things like this just because… of luck?" If that's true, then that's a good excuse for suddenly awakening the sharingan._

"_Well, yeah, but this isn't something that you can suddenly just 'awaken'. Have you always smelled things this way?"_

"_N-Yeah. Yeah, always." Naruto said quickly._

_Kiba seemed to buy his response. "My mom's probably going to get a doctor to look at you or something. I really don't know what I'm talking about here. Just the surface level stuff."_

"_So what do I do now?"_

"_Whatever you would do while I try and get in contact with my family. Just try not to die. You could be important."_

_Naruto Saluted. "Righto."_

_Kiba mock saluted and walked off in the direction of a few jonin, no doubt trying to get some form of communication._

"_You're an Inuzuka?" Fu asked._

"_I guess."_

"_Fucking leaf nin." Kankuro said under his breath._

"Everyone, please file into the common area in the tower." A detached, rather sickly sounding voice said from some speakers in the room that he and Fu were trying to get some sleep in.

Naruto jolted upwards at the sudden announcement, while Fu began grumbling in her sleep. "Fwah?" she asked incomprehensibly.

"People want us to go to the common area in the tower." Naruto mumbled. Fu groaned and fell out of bed onto the floor. It was a good thing she had the reflexes of a ninja and was able to orient herself, else she might have brained herself on the nearby drawer.

"I dun' wanna." She said.

Naruto flipped the covers off himself. "We have to." He was wearing a pair of toad pajamas that they had 'imported' from his house. Fu was wearing her normal shinobi garb sans the pointy bits. Apparently it was rather comfortable and resilient to getting dirty unlike most other pieces of apparel.

Naruto began walking to the door, but was nearly floored when Fu landed on his back. "I dun' wanna go." She mumbled again.

Naruto sighed and grabbed a hold of her legs, carrying her in piggyback style. "Fine, fine." He grumbled.

"Everyone, please file into the common area in the tower." The detached voice said once more.

"I got it, I got it." Naruto mumbled before yawning widely. Other doors to the rooms were starting to get opened as well. All 10 teams began walking to the place specified by the speakers. Everyone looked disgruntled at their rude awakening. The most humorous one had to be that of Karui dragging Shikamaru by the legs while he continued to snooze along the way.

In the common area, there were seven people waiting for them and a few more in the balconies above. Behind the seven was a very large statue making a handseal with its golden hands.

The hokage was there, along with a completely ripped guy that Naruto remembered seeing at a sushi restaurant, an old man that Naruto remembered helping out in the middle of the street, a kid who had a large bo staff-looking thing on his back and a scar running down his left eye, a rather plain looking man with dusty red hair, a sickly fellow who was probably the one who had talked into the intercom, and a slightly timid looking boy who had the forehead protector of Taki on it.

"Hey gramps." Naruto greeted. "How's the back *pause for yawn* treating you?"

Hiruzen looked between Naruto and Onoki. "You two know each other?"

Onoki grumbled his annoyances out.

"Is everyone here?" the sickly man asked. When nobody raised their hand to say no, he continued. "You may or may not know this, but the chunin exams this year are a little bit different than most. You have all been paired up with someone probably from a different village, or just someone that you don't know well. It's usually customary to have the exams be done in the strict 3 man team. This time is different. Does anyone know why?"

Someone in the crown coughed.

"Usually the exams are a deterrent for war." he continued on. "This is done by showcasing our best and brightest to all the nobles in the land to see. This helps the respective villages with job opportunities that the nobles would like to be enacted in the future. However, while the third exam is always the same with a round-robin type tournament, we're swapping things up. There will be a tournament, but you will be fighting it in the pairs that you're in right now."

Shikamaru had finally waken up at that point and decided to ask a question. "For what purpose? If the exams are a deterrent for war, then why are you changing it?"

"Good question from the troublesome Nara. This exam isn't a deterrent for war, it's an experiment for peace."

"Peace?" Shikamaru asked.

"If you all manage to get along and not kill your respective partners; that could be a sign that cooperation between the villages could be potentially possible. In front of you are the kage from all your respective nations, along with Shibuki of Taki. These 6 will all be watching your fights next month in the tournament style performance usual for the third exams."

Kurotsuchi pointed at Yagura. "What's he doing here? No mist ninja made it through."

"We're not being exclusionary. Now, since 10 teams made it through, this next part should be pretty even. You will all draw from a hat. In the hat there are 10 slips of paper that have a different symbol on it. If the symbol is fire, you stand next to Hokage-same. If the symbol is lightning, you stand by Raikage-sama and so on. You will all take a month long training excursion in the villages of the kage that you're standing next to. Any questions?"

"What do the tournament brackets look like?" Shikamaru asked.

"Those will be decided day of. Also note that Shibuki-sama isn't going to be accepting any ninjas for the training excursion. He's only here for symbolic reasons."

Shibuki raised a hand and feebly waved at the tired genin.

"Any more questions?" Hayate asked. When no more hands were raised, Hayate took off his bandana, grabbed a few pieces of crumpled up paper from his kunai pouch, and sprinkled them in. "Teams, form a line and pick from the bandana."

Too tired to make a fuss about it, they all walked uniformly towards the sickly man and grabbed a piece of paper.

Fire:

Naruto and Fu, Shikamaru and Karui

Wind:

Tenten and Fujitsu, Ino and Omoi

Lightning:

Gaara and Takkana, Temari and Sakura

Stone:

Sasuke and Kurotsuchi, Neji and Hinata

Water:

Kiba and Kankuro, Lee and Samui

"You can all go home or to your hotels for now. You leave in two days' time. Make sure you make the most of it."

"Hear that Fu?" Naruto asked her, still on his back. "We're going to be training together for a month."

She didn't respond at all to him. Naruto looked over his shoulder to see her properly asleep and drooling on his shoulder.

00000000

Orochimaru looked at Kabuto with interested eyes. "Oh? Well, I'm sorry to tell you, but I already have this information."

Kabuto looked surprised. "How did you know that there were three Jinchuuriki in the exam?"

"Becau- Three?"

"Yes, Naruto Uzumaki, Sabaku no Gaara, and Fu of Taki."

"So that Gaara child is a Jinchuuriki as well… that just makes my plan all the more interesting now doesn't it?"

Kabuto rubbed his neck painfully. "Yes sir." Although his body could regenerate on its own so long as he had the chakra to support it, it still hurt like a motherfucker getting your neck snapped.

"Kukuku. This just got a whole lot more interesting."

**AN/ How's it going folks? Wanna hear a funny story?**

**A clown walks into a bar and sits down next to a certain gentleman. The gentleman looks sad and the clown asks why. The gentleman responds with "I just recovered the wrong file with Word. Now five thousand words of progress of my new chapter are lost." The clown thinks for a bit before responding with "Sucks to be you."**

**Indeed it does suck for me.**

**Read and Review. Naruto crashes a party, Anko wants Naruto for an apprentice, Sasuke goes wild, the important people all make it to the tower, Naruto and Fu and have an enlightening conversation, Naruto and Kiba talk about genes and chakra, and the system for the third exam is explained.**

**Any of those things need commenting on? Well the review box is right below you to take advantage of.**

**Have a gentlemanly day**


	12. an apprenticeship and a date

**AN/ don't worry guys. Even if my data is deleted millions of times, I'll still try my best to update. I just can't stand those guys who offer an 'I don't feel like doing it anymore' when they stop working on their stories.**

**NOT GOOD ENOUGH. AT LEAST MAKE SOME SORT OF HAM-STRUNG EPILOGUE.**

**Ahem. Onto the story**

Chapter 12

Naruto slid Fu off of his shoulders and let her slump against his sofa. It was midnight when the teams were escorted out of the tower the safe way via elaborate underground tunnels, so by the time Naruto reached the apartment, it was already in the wee little hours of morning.

Naruto didn't know where Fu lived and she refused to wake up despite less than gentle prodding. So he decided that it probably wouldn't be a bad idea for her to spend the night at his place.

Naruto stumbled to his closet and brought out a felt blanket that he used in the winter to supplement his normal quilt and draped it over Fu's form. He then repositioned her body to the point where she didn't look like she fell haphazardly from someone's back into an uncomfortable position. Once he was sure she looked comfortable, he walked to his room and fell onto his bed, barely able to raise the quilt to cover himself before he fell asleep.

00000000

Noon, the next day.

Anko knocked at Naruto's door. She was giddy. Not in her usual Anko way, but in a sincere way. She was genuinely happy and began shifting the weight of her body across her feet as she waited for her student to answer the door. She even hummed a jaunty little tune while she was at it.

After a little bit of time passed, she knocked again. For some reason, she wasn't allowed to enter the tower in the forest of death to greet her student. Something about they being in the third examiner's jurisdiction while in the tower. Strange logic aside, she was forced to wait for Naruto to exit the tower on his own volition for her to ask him about becoming her apprentice.

Over the past few days, she had stewed over the decision, worried over it, wondered over it, and ultimately decided to not think about it anymore until she talked to him about it. Needless to say, this was kind of a big moment for her. Deciding to take an apprentice was no small decision for any normal jonin, add on her own insecurities on the subject matter only made it more monumental.

Why wasn't he answering? Sure, they might have gotten out at midnight, or so she heard, but it was noon now. He shouldn't be sleeping. There was no chance of him having exited either, as the freshest scent she could taste was several hours old, just about the time he would have entered the apartment.

"Naruto. It's Anko. Open the door. I've got something important to talk to you about~" She said in a sing-song voice. After waiting for a few seconds, she sweatdropped. "Oi, kid. If you don't answer soon, I'm going in through the window." She really didn't want to do that. Although going in through the window was standard shinobi operation, and she practically never used the door for anything other than kage administration, she wanted this process to be official-like. Not a case where she crashes into the room and holds out a document for him to sign with her standard Anko grin.

Well, it looks like he was forcing her hand on this one though. She walked a few steps to the nearby window and began fiddling with the lock using a long coil of wire. It was always a good idea to be prepared to break into someone's house on a moment's notice.

She stepped into the dimly lit dining room and called out. "Naruto? You can't still be asleep." She patrolled the house a little bit, trying to figure out where his room was located. On the way there, she passed a vacant sofa that had a blanket crumpled into it which looked slept in.

Anko opened a door close to the kitchen and found a strange sight awaiting her. On the bed in front of her was Naruto face up in his bed with his partner snuggled up by his side. His pajama top had been unbuttoned and Fu's hand was resting on his chest. There was a content looking smile on Fu's face.

"Naruto?" she said in surprise.

This seemed to wake him, as his eyes shot open and he looked up in surprise.

"Wow. Didn't mean to, uuhhh… I'll just leave now." Anko said with a slight blush on her face, closing the door behind her. Since when did 13 year olds start fucking each other? Sure, the life expectancy wasn't very long for shinobi, but the line had to be drawn somewhere.

"Anko?" Naruto asked in confusion before realizing his predicament. "Fu?" Naruto shrugged her arm off of him and got up. "Fu? What are you doing in my bed?" he asked her with wide eyes.

She yawned widely and got up into a sitting position. "I got cold in the night." She finally said.

"But- just- you can't just hop into someone else's bed when they're in it."

She rubbed her eyes to get the sleep out of them. "I can't?"

"No!"

She shrugged. "Sorry, didn't know." With that, she fell back onto the bed and closed her eyes once more.

Naruto probably would have gone on chastising her, but two things stopped him. One being the knowledge that she was an orphan who had lived in the woods a good portion of her life, and two being the fact that his sensei was in his house for reasons unknown.

Naruto opened the door to his room to find Anko sitting at his kitchen counter, trying not to make eye contact. "Listen kid, I have to talk to you about something important."

Naruto sat opposite her with a little bit of trepidation. She almost never spoke in a serious tone.

"Well, first off… I know that the prospect of being a ninja can be scary at times. And I also know that you and your partner would want to celebrate you passing the second stage, but…" Anko paused, words dying in her throat.

"Yeah?" Naruto asked confusedly.

"You shouldn't be having… sex, at your age."

"What are you talking about?"

Anko quirked an eyebrow. "Weren't you and Fu…?" She made the sex motions with her fingers.

Naruto blushed a bright vermillion and started expounding negatives. "No, of course not! Fu just crept into my bed when I was asleep!"

This threw Anko for a loop. "She… crept into your bed? Why did she do that? Also, why was she even sleeping in your apartment anyway? Doesn't she have a hotel to go to?"

Naruto shrugged. "I don't know. Nobody ever told her it wasn't okay to do it? And I didn't know where her hotel was, so I let her crash on the sofa."

"So what? She's an orphan then?" Anko, herself being an orphan, could attest to the fact that with nobody by your side to teach you what was and wasn't socially acceptable, then you might grow up to learn it the hard way. Horribly embarrassing experiences. Orphanages were usually just too big for the caretakers to suitably make every orphan there and teach them everything that a child would need to know for operating in the real world

"And she's lived in the woods for a few years."

Anko leaned back and sighed in relief. "Well that's a relief. I thought I was going to have to give you the whole 'responsibility' talk, then the 'practice safe sex' talk, then the 'maintaining proper romantic relationships' talk. You know, all the boring stuff." Anko grinned at her student in amusement, which drew a nervous chuckle from him.

She slapped a document on the table. It had been folded in many places already and looked like it had been carried around a lot. "What's this?" Naruto asked.

"This." Anko tapped the document in question. "Is an apprenticeship contract."

Naruto's eyes opened wide in surprise. "An apprenticeship contract? I thought that you didn't take apprentices."

"I didn't, up until I decided otherwise." She said vaguely.

Naruto picked up the document and started skimming the tightly formatted lines of legally binding words. Anko produced a pen from her coat pocket. "Basically, what it says is that I am obligated to teach you all I know in my repertoire of ninja skills and am also allowed to make some changes in your life."

Naruto stopped reading all at once and slowly looked up at his sensei. "What kind of changes?" he asked guardedly.

"Oh nothing major. Diet, training regimen, stuff that could impact your ability to learn from me."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing much. Only that I'm allowed to take you on missions without the approval of your jonin sensei."

"Will I still be a part of team 7?"

"Officially, yes. But seeing as you'll be my apprentice, you probably won't interact with them much except when you go on missions. Oh, I'm also allowed to go on the missions that you and your team go on."

"Is that it? That's not much different from being your student."

"Well, having an apprentice is a lot more time consuming and intensive than having a student. We'll be around each other a lot more from now on."

Naruto uncapped the pen and signed where the line indicated. "Okay, I trust you. Can you teach Fu stuff too?"

Anko leaned back to get a good view of the Taki nin inhabiting Naruto's bed from the doorway. She was sleeping soundly again. "Why?"

"Don't you know about the third exam?" Naruto asked.

"Is it something different from the usual tournament?"

"Tag team tournament. Fu's going to be training in Konoha with me."

"Oh." Anko said. "I guess I could teach her a few things to help you guys with your fights, but there are things that are only you can learn now that you're my apprentice."

_New Status effect: Anko's apprentice._

_Description: You are now under the guidance of Anko Mitarashi._

_Reward: Mitarashi training suit Mk. 1_

Naruto looked at the pop up window with a little bit of confusion. 'Clothes are rewards?'

"Something wrong?" she asked after she noticed the look on his face.

"…No, everything's fine. So what _did_ make you want to take apprentices?"

"That." She said pointedly. "Is none of your business?"

"It kind of is." Naruto said in deadpan.

"Now!" she said excitedly. "I need to turn this in to Hokage-sama. It should be official by tomorrow."

"Right." Naruto said before turning on the burner on the stove and getting a pan out. "I've got a few things that need doing today. Can we start training tomorrow?"

"Yup." She said with her patented Anko grin. "Meet up at the usual place at nine tomorrow. You can bring your friend if you want" Anko said before jumping out the nearest window.

Naruto grabbed a few eggs out of his refrigerator and cracked them over the pan. The smell eventually aroused the attention of a lethargic Fu.

"What was that all about?" She asked.

"Nothing much. Just became an apprentice to Anko."

Fu nodded and sat at the counter. "So what's for breakfast?"

00000000

Tsume had a blank look as she read over the long list of data pertaining to Naruto's DNA, chakra composition, and newfound traits. This made Naruto very nervous. The way Kiba explained chakra mutation made it seem like it just _happened_ every once and a while.

Nope. Chakra had the ability to mutate and give the user fantastical new abilities, but the chances of this happening were somewhere within one in ten million. Not only that, but it always happened at birth. There were no recorded cases of someone's chakra mutating during puberty.

Tsume tossed the piece of paper to the side. Currently, he and Inuzuka matriarch were sitting in a small hospital room. The doctor who had drawn his blood and given the subsequent results to Tsume had left them alone for the time being.

"…Kiba said that you had always smelled things this way?"

Naruto rubbed the back of his neck nervously. By the tone of doubt she used when asking this, Naruto assumed that it shouldn't be a possible situation. "Kind of. It's been a lot stronger lately."

Tsume nodded and looked to the side again. "Look kid, I'm going to be straight with you. This whole situation." She made circling movements with her hand in Naruto's direction. "With the newfound sense of smell and hearing, it doesn't happen."

"It doesn't happen… very often?"

"Nope. It just doesn't happen. Your DNA was the exact same as it was a few months ago when you got your last check up, so that means that you are still you. But your chakra is different now. That doesn't happen."

Naruto sat quietly, taking it in. "So what now?"

She sighed laboriously and clutched her forehead. "I don't fucking know. Hokage-sama has a lot on his plate as of late, adding this on would only exacerbate things. The way I see it is that I have three options. One, pretend like this never happened and walk away from it, washing my hands of responsibility. Two, I can accept you as an honorary member of the Inuzuka. And three, I can accept you as a full-fledged Inuzuka. There's no way I'm doing either one or three. Because I'm not a pansy that walks away from responsibility and you also don't have a lick of Inuzuka blood in you, which leaves us with option two."

"Honorary clan status?"

"Kiba told me that you are the entire reason why Akamaru is still alive today. You are loyal to a fault and don't wish to endanger your comrades. But most importantly, your nose and hearing are on par with that of a ninken. Giving you honorary clan status wouldn't be so farfetched an idea to the other clansmen."

"What is honorary clan status?"

"Basically, you become an Inuzuka in everything but name. You will be allowed to live in the compounds, take a canine partner, and learn the clan techniques."

Well this was an unintended but wholly fantastic outcome of getting sensory powers. "Really?"

She smirked at his excitement. "Yup." She leaned back in her chair. "This is going to be so much paperwork."

Naruto got up from where he was sitting. "Is that everything?"

"I guess. Just remember, we don't accept disloyalty. If you hurt a comrade on purpose for selfish gain, it won't matter if you can sniff out gold, because your ass will be out of the clan faster than an unladen swallow."

Naruto nodded vigorously. "You won't have to worry about a thing."

She smiled a little at his enthusiasm. "Then let me be the first to cordially welcome you to the clan. Come over to the compound whenever in the next few days to make it official. The tournament takes place next month correct?" Naruto nodded. "Then that means you are going to have to be taking crash courses on Inuzuka techniques, which, might I add, are secret. Don't tell anyone about them or else we have the legal right to lock you up in a dog kennel for as long as you live."

_New Status effect: Honorary Inuzuka._

_Description: you have been accepted into the ranks of the Inuzuka family._

_Reward: Access to Inuzuka techniques, right to take a canine partner, the ability to marry clan members, Inuzuka training suit Mk. 1_

Tsume got up and walked out the door with a parting "See ya at the clan, kid."

Naruto got up a few seconds later and followed her out of the building, giddy with excitement. He had a family now!

00000000

Naruto's apartment, 4ish

Naruto stared at the guidebook he was holding open. He knew he probably shouldn't be using attribute points right now, considering what they could do for him, but he had to know what would happen when he maxed one out. Naruto put 15 points towards his seduction skill, the skill closest to being maxed out, putting it at a solid 50/50.

_Mutations available. Pick two_

_Perk: Harem ending_

_Description: All the females that are romantically interested in you and all the females you are romantically interested in have lowered reservations to the concept of sharing you._

_Perk: Animal magnetism_

_Description: You start to excrete a substance close to that of animal pheromones constantly. All the females around you regardless of romantic affiliation feel sexually aroused by your presence, while all the males around you feel irrational anger by your presence._

_Skill Tree: Horndog_

_Description: You start to develop the skills in seducing women with the express purpose of sexual intercourse._

_Skill Tree: Devotion_

_Description: You start to develop the skills in seducing women with the express purpose of starting and maintaining lasting relationships._

Well it looks like they do mutate. Not only that, but they make more skill trees for him to master.

It didn't take Naruto long to narrow down the two he wanted. Making half the population irrationally angry whenever he was around wasn't exactly the best of things for a shinobi to have to put up with and the Horndog tree just sounded… wrong. So Naruto tapped on the Devotion skill trait and the Harem ending skill trait. Naruto wasn't sure about the Harem ending skill trait, but it was the lesser of three evils.

"Yo."

Naruto started heavily from his readings to see Kakashi standing over him. "Kakashi-sensei? Where have you been?"

Kakashi scratched his cloth clad cheek disinterestedly. "I told you. I was on a mission of vital importance to the Village Hidden in the Leaves."

"Yeah, yeah. You were probably just scoping out some more porn. Why did you break into my apartment?"

"I need to tell you something."

"There's a door."

"An astute observation."

Naruto glowered at the aloof man. "What do you need to tell me?"

"Well, for the time being, team 7 is being split up amongst the hidden villages. I won't be able to teach all three of you fairly, so I decided that I'm going to go to the land of lighting to help Sakura, seeing as she needs the most help out of all three of you."

"Okay… I guess that's cool."

"Are you sure? Is Anko still willing to teach you?"

Naruto smiled. "Yeah. In fact, I just signed an apprenticeship contract with her."

Kakashi's one visible eyebrow shot into this hairline. "An apprenticeship? With her?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you inform me?"

Naruto just stared at the man in wonder. "Why do you think? Why's it such a big deal anyway? I know that she's going to be teaching me a lot of stuff and we're going to be spending more time with each other, but that's basically just an amped up version of what I was going through two weeks ago."

"I'm more surprised it was _her_ that took you on as an apprentice. Not only that, but I don't think you understand just how much time you two are going to be spending together. Apprenticeships last from anywhere within a year to a lifetime and you two are going to be around each other for most of your waking hours for that time. And you want to spend that time with _her_?"

"Why do you say it like that? Sure, she's intense sometimes, but she's the only one around here who's bothered to teach me anything!"

Kakashi stared hard at the boy. "You say that like I haven't."

"You taught us, team 7, one chakra control exercise and some teamwork routines. That's it."

"Teamwork is the most important thing that you three need to work on."

Naruto cupped his chin in hand. "Want to know something Kakashi-sensei? Akamaru, Kiba's dog, almost died in the forest."

"What does this have to do with anything?"

"The reason he's not dead is because I saved him."

Kakashi didn't know how to respond to that.

"I saved him because I knew how to treat wounds in the field. I saved him because Anko taught me how to treat wounds in the field. I saved him, and because I saved him, I'm not dead." Naruto said vindictively. "When I saved him, Kiba wanted to thank me by giving me some animals for finishing that phase of the exam. If he hadn't gone out looking for me, then he wouldn't have found me and a few others about to be killed by some sound nin. The point is, because Anko was willing to teach me that stuff, I'm still alive."

Kakashi's words died in his throat.

Naruto sighed into his hands. "Look, I know that teamwork is important. But teamwork isn't what saved Akamaru. Teamwork isn't what taught me how to save Akamaru. Teamwork isn't what saved me from those sound nin, well I guess it kind of was, but you get the point… Sakura does need help. So could you please help her?"

Kakashi stared at Naruto for the longest time. "Yeah, I think I can help her."

"Like, really help her? Not just teamwork help her."

"…I'll help her."

"Cool." Naruto got up from the sofa where he was sitting at and headed for his room. "Is there anything else? I'm kind of busy."

"Just wanted to inform you of where I was going to be for the next month. What are you busy with?"

"Looking for clothes."

"Clothes for what?"

"My date."

Kakashi made an aahhh'ing sound. "Did Sakura finally say yes then?"

"Nope. It's with Fu."

"Fu? Oh yes, your partner for the next phase. So have you finally gotten over Sakura then?"

"No, I still like her. This is just a date, you know."

This confused Kakashi greatly. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know. It's a date. Something where two people go and do stuff together in an effort to gauge whether or not they would be a suitable partner in the future. Learned that during my seduction lessons. We're teammates, so we're just hanging out."

"You're taking seduction lessons? Why would you do that?"

Naruto waved him off. "It's a pretty long story, but it didn't work out like I had hoped."

"You were taking them to get Sakura to like you?"

"Something like that. Now which shirt should I wear? Orange, or dark blue?" Naruto switched the shirts over his torso to allow Kakashi a good understanding of what he would look like in either.

Kakashi shrugged. "Orange, I guess."

Naruto clicked his tongue. "Dark blue it is then."

00000000

Yugao Uzuki, codenamed 'cat' for now, was looking at a rather strange sight. This sight being an acquaintance of hers spying down at the street below from a vantage point among shadowed rooftops while mumbling to herself.

"What business do you have on the rooftops?" Cat asked business-like.

Anko very nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her voice. "BWAH! What the? Oh! Hello Yugao-chan, nice evening isn't it?" She asked with a smiling face.

"That's a rather affectionate suffix."

"You're damn right it is. Now what is it you need? I'm just a wee bit busy here."

"What business do you have on the rooftops?"

"Spying."

"Spying?"

"Or I guess you could call it supervising."

"Supervising?"

"No, wait. I am determining the progress of my new apprentice."

"A new apprentice? What are you determining the progress of?"

Anko pointed at a pair walking down the street together. They were licking away at some ice cream cones and talking to each other amiably.

"I don't… I don't understand."

"That." She said, gesturing to Naruto. "Is my new apprentice."

"Okay, I got that. What are you determining the progress of?"

"Seduction."

"…Seduction?"

"Seduction."

"You're teaching your apprentice seduction?"

"He practically begged to learn it."

Yugao got another good look at the walking couple. "That's seduction? It looks like an innocent little date to me."

"Ah, that's where you are simultaneously right and wrong, Yugao-chan. Seduction is the practice of getting a person's guard down in order to extract secrets from them."

"So… you taught him how to date properly? That isn't really the image that pops into my head when I hear the word 'seduction'."

"Well what else am I going to teach him? How to pick up women at a bar? He's 13. Plus there's a lot more than just knowing how to date when it comes to seduction."

"How so?"

"Everything from asking the right questions at the right time all the way down to how you hold yourself. See that?" She asked pointing at Naruto.

"He looks… normal?"

"Nope. He's constantly keeping his back straight, asking questions that he knows that she would know and or care about, and always has a carefree expression on his face. Show's that he's strong and reliable, but not intimidating. And she seems to enjoy it too. I'm so proud of him." She said while wiping away a non-existent tear from her face.

"So what information is he trying to extract?"

"Huh?"

"The information. You just said how seduction was supposed to get information by lowering the mental defenses of people."

"Oh that? Fuck if I know."

Cat went silent for a bit, puzzling out Anko's answer. "So you really are just spying on your apprentice while he's taking a girl out on a date?"

"Practically." She said, eyes glued to the two laughing Jinchuuriki.

Yugao would have facepalmed if not for the mask on her face. "The village is on high alert because your ex-sensei infiltrated the exams and injured a few prospective genin. So I would appreciate it if you didn't use the rooftops for trivial matters." Yugao said coldly.

"Okay, okay. Geeze. What crawled up your ass and died?" Anko jumped down from her position and began stalking her apprentice from afar.

Yugao jumped away from the scene and continued her rounds, pretending like she didn't just have that extremely annoying conversation.

00000000

Fu was wearing a flowery dress. It was short, ending mid-thigh, and billowy. She was wearing an orange clip in her hair to keep her bangs from obscuring her vision. On her shoulder was a white satchel. Fu was also in the process of laughing at a story that Naruto had told.

Naruto was wearing his usual orange jumpsuit pants, but had forsaken the jacket for a dark blue T-shirt. He was grinning nervously and blushing slightly from her uproarious laughter, seeing as the story he told was somewhat embarrassing to him.

Naruto was doing a lot of things subconsciously on the date he was on with her. Things that just came as second nature to him. In a deeper level of his brain, he would probably liken it to the skill trait he just maxed out. Regardless, he was doing a lot of things he really shouldn't have been doing.

That didn't mean that the date was going badly, far from it, only that he was doing things without thinking about them which could majorly affect his life.

Naruto's realm of conscious thinking noted that the date he and Fu were on was just a date between friends and partners, getting to know each other better so they could work well when the time came to fight other teams. But Naruto was subconsciously doing things that one would do when trying to woo a prospective partner. Subtly drawing her attention to his developing muscles, not telling any stories that were too bawdy, listening attentively when she was talking and not interrupting her. Things that people do when on a serious date, not a hang-out between friends.

Once Fu's laughter subsided, she grinned and looked at Naruto. "So what should we do now?"

Naruto picked Fu up from the hotel she was staying at around 4:30 or so. They spent about 45 minutes going and eating at Ichiraku's, a place with good food and a nice atmosphere. Then they walked around bit, talking about this or that and getting the odd ice cream cone.

Naruto looked at the sky. The sun was going down, starting to paint the sky with oranges and pinks. "It is getting pretty late…"

"Oh, come on. One more thing? Please." Fu looked at Naruto with puppy dog eyes and made little whimpering noises.

Naruto grinned stupidly. "Okay, one more thing. Oh! I know what we can do."

"Really? What is it?"

"Follow me." Naruto grinned before shooting off with the speed of a ninja.

Fu had no problem with keeping up with him. She began smiling uncontrollably. It was fun being around him. She was _having _fun. She couldn't remember the last time she had just had fun with someone.

Naruto looked back to make she was keeping up with him, then seeing the look on her face, he asked "What's up?"

"Nothing." She replied, still smiling. "Nothing at all."

Her smiling proved to be intoxicatingly communicable, as Naruto began smiling as well. They soon arrived at a set of stairs where they had no trouble climbing upwards. The two Jinchuuriki climbed quickly in silence as Naruto led the way for Fu.

Finally, they made it to a rocky area that had a good view of the entire city of Konoha. "We" Naruto stated "Are on top of the Hokage monument."

"Really?" Fu hadn't been paying much attention to where she was going, just trying to keep Naruto in her sights and focusing on foot holds.

"Yup." Naruto sat down on an orange slab of rock. "This is the head of the Fourth." He patted an area for her to sit at beside him.

"Wow." She said, sitting down next to her partner. "The sunset's really beautiful."

"It is." Naruto stated. "I come up here to think sometimes."

They sat together in silence as they watched the sun disappear below the horizon line. The sprawling buildings below were cloaked in pinks and oranges from the sun's refracting rays.

Naruto really like Fu. When he first met her, she was withdrawn and seldom spoke out unless she was spoken to. But over their period of partnership, she began to emerge from her shell a little bit, showing the nice, caring, girl that she was. He also really liked spending time with her. She was probably the only normal female influence on his life right now. Not like Anko, who went out of her way to place him in uncomfortable situations, or Sakura who was very physically violent. Nope. She was normal, and Naruto really liked that normalcy.

Once the sun had properly set, bathing the world in darkness once more, Naruto got up and offered his hand to Fu. She took it and used his hand to pull herself up. "Do you need an escort to your hotel?" Naruto asked.

Fu looked at him in confusion. "What are you talking about? I checked out this afternoon."

This threw Naruto for a loop. "But… why? Isn't your village sponsoring your stay here?"

She shrugged. "I thought I was staying with you for the month."

"Why did you think that?"

"I woke up on _your_ sofa."

"That's because I didn't know where your hotel was to check you in."

Fu groaned out in disappointment. "Am I going to have to check back in again?"

"No, no. You don't have to do that. I could probably grab a futon from the closet. But where's all your luggage?"

Fu gestured to her satchel. "A few sets of clothes and some bathroom stuff."

"That's it? For a month that's all you have?"

"What else do I need? I'm not really much on material wealth."

Okay, so maybe she wasn't _that_ normal. Naruto ceded "Okay, okay. You can live in my apartment for the month. So how do you want to get back? Walking, or piggyback like last time?"

Fu didn't waste any time hopping on Naruto's back faster than he could react. "I think I like this way of transportation better."

Naruto chuckled a little bit. "You know I was joking, right?"

"You might be joking, but I'm not." Fu stated with a mischievous grin.

Naruto clapped his hands on Fu's back thighs to make sure she couldn't fall off. "Then you better prepare yourself, because we're going to bumpy way back."

Fu clasped her arms around Naruto's neck and whispered in his ear. "Oh, I was born prepared."

Naruto smirked and jumped off the head of The Fourth. Yup, this month was going to be an eventful one.

**AN/ This chapter's a bit smaller than the last one, but I didn't know if there was anything else to put in.**

**Next chapter is going to be the start of training, where Naruto's daily routine is going to be defined. There will also be a look at how the other people are doing with their partners. Oh, and I'll be going more in-depth with the whole 'honorary Inuzuka thing'.**

**Other than that, Read and Review on anything you might have questions on.**

**Before you leave, I have a question for you. What is **_**your**_** definition of filler content? I've heard that term before for a lot of different things, some I agree with and some I don't.**

**For example: my definition of filler is any content that doesn't accomplish anything. I don't care if it wasn't in the manga, if it helped to build character relationships or advance the plot in any meaningful way, then it isn't filler to me.**

**Have a gentlemanly day. Don't be shy to answer.**


	13. a start to the month of training

Chapter 13

**AN/ to all those worried about me giving Naruto a ninja dog, don't worry. I'm not stupid enough to give Naruto a ninja dog. That's mess up the whole pacing of the story.**

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE FIRST CHUNIN EXAM PHASE_

_Reward: a detailed map and explanation of the second exam_

_ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: PASSED THE SECOND CHUNIN EXAM PHASE_

_Reward: a detailed list of all participating members of the third exam._

_Quest completed: Take Fu on a date_

_Reward: +10 water elemental affinity. +5 Jinchuuriki shape manipulation. +5 Jinchuuriki control_

On the bed that Naruto was sitting at, new matter was spat into existence as soon as he read the achievement's that he had recently gotten. One was a map that had comprehensive and comprehensible scribbling's on it, while the other was a small pamphlet similar in size to the bingo book.

This fact was rather confusing to Naruto. He vaguely remembered scrolling past those two achievements, one in the forest while he was scrambling for a means of getting back to Fu, the other when he was determining what attribute point he should get maxed out.

Only now was he getting the rewards for the achievements, which really confused him. The only thing that changed was that he actually read the achievement and the reward. The one time that he played an RPG he remembered always scrolling past the achievements because in his mind, they were worthless to him. Now, he had to figure out why he was getting the rewards now instead of then.

Naruto fell back on his bed and sighed in confusion. If only he had someone smart enough to explain this all to him. Someone like Shikamaru. He's smart. Way smarter than Naruto at any rate.

The sound of sizzling bacon assaulted his ears. One thing he learned about Fu during their date was that she was remarkably good at cooking meat, or anything that had to do with a heated pan and food. As that was her primary way of cooking food and getting nutrition in the woods. Naruto shut the book with a sense of finality. He really had to look through it in more detail at another time, but right now he had to get ready for morning training with Anko and Fu.

Naruto grimaced a little at remembering how he woke up. Fu, despite knowing that it wasn't socially acceptable to crawl into the bed of someone that they weren't extremely close to, decided to do it anyway. Her reason for doing so was simple. It helped her to sleep when she was sharing a bed, so she decided to share a bed. The notion came from a sense of pragmatism that Naruto had trouble trying to comprehend, but regardless of how he felt about it, it looked like it was going to be a continuous thing with her.

There was also the matter of his new clothing. He looked towards his closet, which now had two more outfits inside of it bereft of his doing anything to put them there.

One was a mesh overshirt paired with some arm and shin guards and a loose-fitting pair of cargo shorts full of so many pockets. But this wasn't a normal outfit by any stretch of the imagination. On the back inside of the shirt was a small square that when he pressed on it, a window popped up.

_Mitarashi training suit Mk. 1_

_Description: a suit similar to that of Mitarashi Anko. It has free reign of movement coupled with a large amount of pockets for keeping a hold of any ninja items._

_Effect: +10 flexibility, +10 speed_

Next to that one was a suit kind of like Kiba's, but not very. It was an orange light jacket that had no hood and fur along on the collar. There was also no zipper or buttons that could hold the jacket closed. Underneath that, there was light gray baggy pants. There was no undershirt.

_Inuzuka training suit Mk. 1_

_Description: a suit worn by the members of the Inuzuka clan that use the vulpini members of the canidae family for their symbiotic partnership._

_Effect: +10 speed, +10 strength._

Whatever the case was, he felt silly when he put them on. Seeing as the change in base stats wouldn't really affect his training, he decided to go with what he was comfortable with for the time being.

Although the stat changes were so good that he'd definitely have to wear some form of them during the actual tournament. Four levels' worth of stat bonuses were definitely worth looking silly.

Naruto was really enthused by learning this because CLOTHES HAVE STATS ON THEM! That means that if he gets good as a tailor, that he could make stat altering clothing. The simple fact that the clothing has stats on them completely validated his reasons for doing the whole tailorship enterprise other than a source of revenue.

Naruto got out of bed and to the source of cooking food. He had quite a lot to accomplish that day and was very thankful for shadow clones to do most of them for him.

00000000

Anko was sitting in lotus position in front her student and his partner for the next exam. She was nervous. Anyone would be if they were beginning to mold a potential young lad into a proper and prim shinobi. Anko especially due to her continued reservations on the subject. Regardless, she had to start somewhere and at some time. You know what they say, no time like the present.

"Okay you two lucky little kids. Run me down on what you know, what you wish to accomplish, and what you're working on. Fu, you can keep any village secrets that you want, but to teach you well, I'm going to need something to work with."

Fu nodded cheerfully. She had been in happy spirits ever since her little date with Naruto. "I know kenjutsu, the water sword jutsu, my scale powder jutsu, and a little bit on how to do Jinchuuriki form well. I want to learn more about kenjutsu and my Jinchuuriki form. And I'm working on my kenjutsu right now."

"What's this scale powder jutsu? I haven't heard of it."

"It's the same as the hidden mist jutsu, but I use a little bit Nanabi's power with it. This makes me exhale a lot of tiny little scales that refract the light around it. It's used as a distraction and can also be ignited into explosions. The previous Jinchuuriki of the Nanabi made it and wrote it down into scrolls."

"Wow. That sounds really cool. Now I won't need to teach anyone supplementary jutsu or distraction jutsu." She turned to Naruto. "Can you do anything like that, kid?"

"Nope. I know the basic academy jutsu, the shadow clone jutsu, a little bit of bojutsu, a little bit of senbonjutsu, I'm getting pretty good with medical ninjutsu, and some side stuff like trap making. I want to work on getting my combat abilities up." Although the previous weeks were really good to Naruto in way of getting him essential shinobi skills, he hadn't really increased his combat potential very much. Since the tournament was going to be two on two fighting, he was going to need to increase his fighting abilities.

"Okay, I can work with that. What are you working on right now?"

"Currently? Right now I am… Working at the hospital for medic ninjutsu; using the scrolls I got for bojutsu and senbonjutsu, but I'm kind of running out of stuff to learn, so I'm going to need to get the more advanced scrolls for those; I'm working with you on stuff, hopefully taijutsu; I'm at a tailor and a blacksmith, working on making stuff; I've got a clone or two at my house, cooking stuff; I'm working on jobs with clones to get me some money; and I'm going to be enrolled at the academy for business lessons."

If there were any flies buzzing around, they would have flown into Anko's and Fu's mouths. "I get that you have shadow clones." Anko finally said after gaining her wits. "But how are you able to move? The haptic feedback would have fried the mind of any jonin in the world from doing that."

Naruto shrugged. "I don't know. I get pretty bad headaches from doing it, but I should be good with my medical ninjutsu."

"Why are you at a blacksmith and a tailor?" Fu asked.

"To make stuff." Naruto said simplistically.

"And the business lessons?" Anko asked.

"To effectively run my business."

"When did you start running a business?"

"A few weeks ago." Naruto said with a grin. It was fun watching their confusion and disbelief run through its cycles. "It's the tailor place." Naruto added.

Anko pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "New information aside, I need to get a good feel for Fu's fighting style. So you two are going to spar." She said, pointing to the two Jinchuuriki.

"Okay." Fu said in a chipper tone before getting up and spawning double water swords.

Naruto unsheathed his bo staff warily. "Are those going to be sharp? I don't want to get my left arm cut off."

Somewhere, in an alternate dimension, a different Naruto sneezed furiously.

"Nah, don't worry. I can change their sharpness." Fu stated before getting into her kenjutsu stance.

Naruto got into his own bojutsu stance. This might not end well for him. From what he's noticed from her fighting people, she was really good at close combat stuff. Fu was deadly with her swords, kicked ass without them, and had some sort of explody cloud jutsu in her sleeves.

"As soon as I understand your fighting styles, I'll create a training regimen." Anko said with a smile. "So hop to it."

Fu charged at Naruto with a practiced ease. Her movements flowed across the field gracefully, her swords carefully guarded her blind spots. She definitely had experience with sort of thing.

Naruto gulped and began fending off the flurry of blows sent his way. He really should have worn those clothes.

00000000

A Naruto clone looked around the compounds around him. The Inuzuka estates were made up of several very large buildings, a few smaller ones, a huge grounds for their dogs, and several dog specific stores. A vet, a behavioral counseling clinic, a food store and so on.

Every so often, he'd catch a person staring at him. They'd look away as soon as Naruto tried to initiate eye contact. Everyone stared at him, always. It was just something that happened that Naruto likened to him being the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki. But now it was kind of different for him. When people stared at him, it was more like they were… curious or intrigued, but didn't want to seem that way.

"Oi, Kiba, what's up with everyone? They're all staring at me." Naruto asked the Inuzuka by his side.

"Huh? Well, you're the new honorary member of the Inuzuka clan. Of course they're going to be curious."

"People know that?" He thought it would take a little longer for the thing to go through what with how exasperated Tsume seemed when she talked about the paperwork.

"Of course they know. Mom was pretty excited about it."

"She was? Didn't seem that way back at the hospital."

Kiba shrugged. "Dunno. Your chakra mutated recently, which hasn't ever happened in recorded history. Mom wants to be the first to figure that out."

"So… what? She's a scientist?"

Kiba waved him off. "Nah, she's just really smart with genetics. Knowing how to mutate chakra during puberty will give the clan more clout and all that."

"Shouldn't she go to the village?"

"She would, but the Inuzuka clan has the best instruments for genetic engineering. Seeing as she's the best at genetics and she has the best tools for it, she decided to not bother the village unless she gets something."

"I guess that makes sense." Naruto said as he looked around the compound. Everyone had an animalistic vibe to them. Must be an Inuzuka thing. Every so often though, he'd see someone who looked like just a normal citizen. No fang marks on their cheeks or anything. "Hey, how common is this honorary Inuzuka thing?"

"It's not… uncommon, I guess."

"Well what's it used for usually? I doubt everyone has a mutation during puberty."

"Our clan is pretty big. About two hundred members. There's enough genetic diversity between us that if we're careful about our lineage, we can intermarry without any side effects. But there isn't really a lot of choice in the way of partners. So, if someone wants to marry outside of the clan, then they can appeal for an honorary Inuzuka membership. It's good for keeping the gene pool big and unless things are complicated, it keeps the need for arranged marriages low."

"Okay… I think I get it. Geez, what's up with you Inuzuka and your genetics?"

Kiba made wide gesticulations towards the myriad of dogs wandering the district. "In case you hadn't noticed, we Inuzuka's like dogs. Knowing basic genetics is kind of a calling card of ours. You know, because of dog breeding and shit."

Naruto held up his hands in defeat. "Okay okay. No need to get so heated. Where are the kennels anyway?"

Kiba pointed directly at the building in front of him. "We're here. And I'm not heated, you're just stupid."

"Same difference. What am I supposed to be doing here again?"

"We're getting you a partner. It's customary that any shinobi Inuzuka get paired with a companion early in their life. You're going to have to make up for lost time."

They walked into the kennels together. Kiba only had to give the receptionist a short explanation and they were on their way into the inner parts of it.

The back room had lots of puppies all playing around with each other. Big, small, black, white, every dog of every breed was there, sans the show dogs of course.

"Now what?" Naruto asked.

"Now you walk in. if any of them speak to you, feel free to take it."

"What do you mean by speak? Like, will they talk to me or something? Because that sounds so cool."

"No, dipshit. I was talking about… eh, never mind. Just take one that you like and we can go. I need to meet Kankuro at the gates in about an hour."

"Fine, fine." Naruto waded into the pool of playing puppies. They didn't take any notice of him, instead going on playing their own game between his legs. Naruto didn't know what to choose. There was a pit bull that looked like it would grow up to be one mean companion. A beagle that looked like it would be able to sniff things out good. A great dane that looked like it'd be able to run really quickly. But he didn't really feel anything watching them play.

Naruto gave them all once over again to see if he missed any. His eyes caught the sight of another little puppy off in the corner, silently chewing on a squeaky little chew toy. Naruto walked over to it and when he got close enough, the little dog's eyes went up to look at him. They were slit eyes, kind of like Kiba's.

Naruto picked the little guy up. It had pointed ears and a bushy tail. Its coat was a brownish blackish redish mixture. "Oi Kiba, what breed is this?"

"Red."

"Red what?"

"Red fox."

"You have foxes? I thought you were a dog clan."

"We're a canine clan. Foxes are canine. They might be pretty distant relatives from dogs and wolves, but they're still canine."

Naruto looked back at the little guy. It was certainly cute. The teeth looked needle thin as they bit into the chew toy. He shrugged. It's not like there were any other dogs out there that spoke to him, might as well get the fox.

"I'm taking him." Naruto said to Kiba, who nodded in return.

"You sure he's a guy?"

Naruto lifted the fox above his head so he could get a clear look. "I'm taking her."

"Cool." Naruto and Kiba walked out of the kennel, making idle chit chat about the final part of the exams along the way.

"You have an idea for a name?" Kiba asked.

"Why don't I call her Fox?"

"No, it has to be something cool. Something like Daidaimaru."

"Great orange? Nah, you keep your naming conventions, I'll keep mine."

"You don't have naming conventions." Kiba pointed out. "Seriously, what are you naming her?"

"How about Kyu?"

"Cute." Kiba said sarcastically.

"Aka."

"Something more complicated that just 'red'."

"Oh, I got it. Kashikoi."

"Wise? That's a weird name."

"I meant Sharp. You know, like her ears." Naruto said, gently stroking the small fox's ears. She was looking around the world fearfully. She obviously hadn't been outside very often. Naruto snuggled the fox closer to his body, hoping that would make it less scared, or at least more comforted.

"Whatever man. You need to work on your kanji. I need to head home and get my stuff for the Land of Water. Head to the vet for instructions on how to look after animals. My sister should be there."

Naruto held out a fist to be bumped. "See ya in a month. Don't die."

Kiba tapped knuckles with his new clan member. "Same to you."

00000000

Across Konoha, another clone opened the door of a small tailor.

"Read the sign. We're closed!" An exasperated sounding teenager said from the back room.

"Even for the owner?" Naruto asked cheekily.

Sounds of rustling cloth amid light cursing. Hikigaya poked his head through the door separating the back room from the front room. He looked… not good. His normally dead fish eyes were blackened with lack of sleep and he had a pasty demeanor. He also looked really pissed.

"You fuck." He hissed out. "Next time you want to take the chunin exams, why don't you tell me. When you didn't report in, I had to ask around the jonin bar to see if any of them saw you. Do you know how scary jonin are?" Naruto made to interrupt, but Hikigaya cut him off. "Not only that, but the work load is more than one person can handle. There's a backlog and people are getting pretty pissed. You're going to be working on repairs until there aren't any left to do. Understand?"

Naruto rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that, kinda slipped my mind. What are you going to do while I'm working on repairs?"

"Sleeping." Hikigaya dropped off the leather smock he used for keeping hold of his tailoring tools on the counter. "I haven't slept since yesterday."

Naruto picked up the slightly oversized smock and put it on. Whatever he thought he'd be doing as a boss since he bought the place, taking orders from his older subordinate was not one of them. Whatever, he probably should have told Hachiman what he was doing anyway, so it was kind of on him.

Although he was going to work on repairs, he also had to make a piece of clothing. A full piece of clothing, not like the others where Hikigaya showed him how to do various stitches for the different areas of the cloth separately. If there was a way that wearing clothing that he made enhanced his base stat points, he'd have to allocate more shadow clones to the shop.

00000000

At a certain hotel, Takkana was fearfully packing her bags.

Ever since she began the second exam, she'd been constantly afraid of that red haired kid. Gaara no Sabaku. He was like a fucking demon.

As soon as the gates opened and they began walking into the forest, Sand crept along her form and engulfed her completely. There was no time to scream, it happened so fast. After that, she was subjugated to being held around in that sandy cocoon while Gaara walked around the forest, killing teams and collecting animals.

It was difficult to keep track of time while in the cocoon, but when she was released, she was in the tower where they were supposed to stay at without having fallen unconscious. The jonin were shocked enough that they immediately escorted her to a medic area. There was nothing wrong with her. Not even a scratch on her body.

Regardless of how safe she ended up at the end of the exam, she was still very frightened of the red haired genin. Nothing seemed to impact him emotionally. Nothing other than the prospect of talking to his 'mother'.

Even if they were teammates, she knew that he saw her as more of a liability than anything. From the sounds of intermittent screaming she heard muffled though the sand was anything to go by, then he was probably the most dangerous genin in the exams.

No problem with killing, no problem with doing things to her against her will, no problem with talking to his 'mother'. Nope, no matter what, she was going to have to keep her distance from him.

The only thing she took comfort in the situation she was in was that Gaara probably knew that he needed alive at least until the end of the third exam. After that, she only hoped that there were enough strong people to keep him from killing her indiscriminately. She knew she couldn't even hold a candle to him when it came to sheer strength and sense of presence.

Why couldn't she get that weapon expert girl for a teammate, like Fujitsu? Or a happy-go-lucky blonde, like Fu?

Takkana shook her head to dismiss those thoughts. Whatever the case was, she'd have to tough the situation out. They were heading to foreign soils. Gaara might be a psychopath, but she just hoped he wasn't stupid enough to kill someone in a different country.

Now she only had to find the demonic child. She hadn't seen him since they left the tower and didn't know where he lived.

Well wasn't this going to fun?

00000000

Tenten was packing her bags as well when she heard the door to her forge open. She looked up suddenly in excitement. There was only one person who had the keys to the forge other than her and her father.

When she came down the stairwell and into the forge, she was met with the visage of Naruto putting a heavy leather apron on. Naruto noticed her presence and waved. "Hey Tenten. Sorry that I just kinda let myself in, but I knocked and no one answered."

"Don't worry, it's fine." Tenten said. She was wearing her normal pink Chinese shirt with her baggy pants. Say what you will about shinobi wear, but they were made to be comfortable. "So what are you doing here? Dad doesn't need any help and you should probably be training with your teammate."

Naruto grabbed a hammer and some tongs. "The entity you are talking to is but a shadow clone." He said ornately. "Right now, I'm doing a lot of things. One of which is working with my partner, another of which is talking to you while I try to make a serviceable kunai." Naruto grabbed an ingot and threw it into the heating oven.

This statement confused Tenten. "What do you mean simultaneously?"

"Shadow clones. Whatever they experience, I experience when they dispel."

"Is that what shadow clones are? Back at the sushi place, you made it seem like just another clone variation."

"Nope. They're really good for training because I can be here working on my smith stuff and my training stuff at the same time."

"So… wait. Are _you_ a shadow clone?"

"Of course I am. Training with my sensei would definitely require a body more sturdy than one that dispels after one hit."

"That sounds so cool. Can you teach me it?"

"Nope. It's super dangerous. The only reason I'm able to do it is because I have a lot of chakra."

"I have a lot chakra too." Tenten said indignantly. "I had the largest reserves of my class."

"No, I mean I have like… a butt-load of chakra. More than I should have."

Tenten didn't seem too happy about him not teaching her the jutsu, but let it drop anyway. "So how's your partnership going? Is she nice? I didn't get to talk to her much during the examinations."

"Fu? Oh she's really nice. She has absolutely no idea what personal space means, but at least she's a good cook."

"E-Eh, what? She cooks for you?"

"She did this morning. She's crashing at my apartment for the month."

"Why is she doing that?"

Naruto stopped what he was doing and stared off into space for a bit. "You know, I really have no idea. Miscommunication I guess."

"And the personal space thing?"

"She creeps into my bed at night."

"O-Oh. She does, does she?

"Yeah, it's really weird."

"You know, if you don't like it, you should probably tell someone. Like an ambassador or something."

Naruto shrugged. "It's fine. She doesn't really understand why it's bad because she was raised in the woods for a chunk of her life. How about Fujitsu? Is he cool?"

"Er, yeah. He's actually really smart. The only thing that got us through the first exams were the strategies that he made for us."

They continued to make idle chit chat until the iron ingot in the furnace got heated enough to the point where it would be easily moldable. After that, Tenten said goodbye to Naruto punctuated with a hug and left to go get the rest of her stuff.

She didn't really know how she was feeling at the moment. She kinda liked Naruto and was more than slightly interested in pursuing a relationship with him. After all, he was probably the only normal male in her life at the moment, they had similar senses of humor, and she just enjoyed being around and talking to him. Actually, she had been in the process of mustering up her courage to ask him out after the second exam, but decided it wouldn't make much sense to try and start a relationship only to immediately put it on a month long hiatus.

There was always a chance that the person you liked might get snatched away before you could figure out how to make a move on them, but this Fu chick sounds like she might hasten the process.

Well, Naruto said he wasn't too keen on her actions, so they'll probably stay just partners. Once she got back after a month, she'd confront him and ask him out. Tenten was convicted to do this. Assuming that he and Fu didn't get together after all.

Actually, no. That left too many things to chance. She was a ninja now. That meant that she'd be surrounded by other ninja with their very own 'ninja quirks'. She was close to someone who at least seemed like he'd be a good fit for her, devoid of any of those 'ninja quirks', so she had to make sure that he knew about her affections before she left.

Tenten raced down the stairs with her suitcase in hand. The sound of a hammer clanging against metal could be heard from the forge. She opened the door suddenly, which surprised Naruto into setting down the superheated metal onto the anvil.

"Tenten? You scared me. What's up?"

She walked up to Naruto with her suitcase being held by both hands behind her back. "I just want to say goodbye for good." She said with a grin. Before she could think twice about it, she leaned forward and landed a peck on his cheek.

As she leaned back, he looked at her, slightly numb with shock and a dumb look on his face, not knowing what to say from her actions.

Oh god… why did she do that? If he didn't like her like that, then she just forfeited a friendship. Not only that, but Naruto worked in the forge very often. They'd see each other on a regular basis and she'd just done something to make those interactions awkward beyond belief.

A bright crimson flooded her cheeks. Tenten turned heel and headed out the door to the road where she quickly jumped up on the rooftops and made a beeline for the gates.

Naruto lightly touched the point on his cheek where Tenten had kissed him.

What the fuck does that mean? Well it obviously means something. It means that she likes him, most prominently. But Naruto was very confused by this fact. Girls thought he was annoying and loud and obnoxious. So why did Tenten do that?

Of course, as of late, he'd been getting along rather well with girls and women. Anko just went through a big deal of a thing to get him to be her apprentice. Fu thought he was tolerable enough that she entered his bed without permission. _Did_ girls like him? The concept was foreign to him.

Or maybe she lost a bet and was put up to it by a friend. Stuff like that happened in the academy from time to time, so it wasn't such a stretch that Tenten would do it as well.

Naruto quenched the hot metal still lying on the anvil into the nearby water trough. He could always come back to the metal later, because right now he had some sleuthing to do.

That sleuthing just included him heading back home and checking out the guidebook. Luckily enough for him, it appeared that several days of seduction lessons actually did pay off. Just not in the way that he imagined it would.

00000000

Hiashi looked down at the kneeling boy in front of him. Right now he and the boy were alone in the clan head's office.

"Neji." He said severely and seriously. "You and Hinata will be going to the Hidden Stone for training until the third exam starts. Do you know what this means?"

"Yes, Hiashi-sama." Neji said through clenched teeth. "I will protect Hinata-sama with my life. There will be no risk to the byakugan being compromised. I promise you this."

Hiashi stared at the boy for moments longer. Truthfully, he wasn't too worried about Stone stealing Hinata's byakugan or them taking her for slavery. If he remembered anything from the third shinobi war, it was that Onoki was a smart and tactful leader. He would never do anything to publically ostracize his nation in front of the other four nations. It just wasn't smart. No matter how sought after the byakugan was.

The Hyuuga family was having familial problems. Hinata was too timid and weak to become a strong shinobi or even the heir to the Hyuuga. Neji was a spiteful lad, with good reason for it. His own father forfeited his life for his uncle due to the circumstances of birth. He had every right to be spiteful. Hanabi was a talented little girl, even surpassing the strength of her sister. This raised the question as to who the true heir of the Hyuuga should be.

Hiashi didn't really know what to do about this though. Hinata's strength wasn't so much a matter of conviction as a matter of disposition. She was too soft to be strong and no matter what he did, Hinata's disposition remained unchanged. Neji was angry at the unfairness of the Hyuuga clan and Hiashi telling him about the duty and honor of the branch family's service to the main family would only exacerbate the situation. Hanabi was the strongest of his daughters, but he didn't necessarily know if she would be cut out for leading a clan.

Hiashi was a stern father, he demanded respect and he got it. Despite his strength as a shinobi, he had absolutely no idea how to help his family for the good. Branch or otherwise. It just wasn't in his area of expertise.

"…As long as you know this, Neji. You are dismissed. Get packed for the Village of Stones."

Neji bowed his head respectfully and exited the room.

Hiashi sat down in his chair behind the desk and placed his head the in palms of his hands out of exasperation.

What was he going to do about his family?

00000000

Samui was at the gate, tapping her foot impatiently. Where was that green kid?

Some guy with a bandaged up thing on his back was walking out of the village with an Inuzuka. Kiba and Kankuro if she remembered correctly. _They_ were on time and heading out for the village that they were heading to.

Eventually, an average looking Taki nin took off with a leaf kunoichi. She hadn't seen much of them during the exams either. The Leaf girl had a monstrous blush on her face and wouldn't tell her partner why it was that way. They left to their village as well while she waited for that bowl-haired genin.

An aloof looking jonin alighted next to a pink haired leaf nin and a sand nin. Sakura and Temari. They had actually 'met' during the second exam once. She was about to give the order to jump them when her teammate stopped her. It wasn't like she could blame him, after all he about to jump a fellow leaf nin, but it was really frustrating for her at the time. The three exited the gate together.

"SAMUI-SAN!" She averted her head to the side as she watched a plume of dust race towards her. The plume of dust grew a face as Lee ran as fast as he could toward her. "I'M SORRY-"

He tripped over his feet and began tumbling head over toe without losing much of his momentum. She sidestepped the green blur and it impacted the wall with a resounding THUNK.

Samui sighed in contempt. She no doubt respected his strength and drive. Some of the things he did in the forest just didn't seem possible for humans, shinobi or not. But he just refused to shut up and had an annoyingly specific chivalrous code. Their personalities really grated against each other. Or more like his grated against hers. She didn't think anything bothered Lee, least of all personalities.

"LEE!" From the plume of dust that was kicked up, a taller version of Lee burst forward. He ran up to Lee and picked him up from the ground. "Lee! Are you alright?"

Lee feebly took a hold of the larger man's hand. "Gai-sensei." His eyes were watery with tears.

"Lee."

"Gai-sensei."

"Lee."

"Are you alright?" Samui asked, ruining the moment between sensei and student. "And who is he?"

Gai helped Lee up and dusted his shoulders off. After doing so, he struck his Nice Guy Pose© "I am Maito Gai, the sensei of your partner. I will be accompanying you on your adventure to the Land of Water. It's a pleasure to meet you." The exuberant man said in common Gai fashion.

'Oh god, there's another one.' Samui thought to herself.

"Gai-sensei!" Lee shouted out. "If I cannot get to the Land of Water within the day, I will do 500 push-ups."

Gai emphatically placed a palm on the hopeful boy's shoulder. "Lee, I will accept this challenge along with you."

"Are you guys serious?" Samui asked coldly. "There's no way we can to the Land of Water within the day."

"With the Power of Youth©, anything is possible." Gai said with his most serious face.

Samui sweatdropped. "Let me rephrase that. There's no way that I could ever get to the Land of Water within the day."

Gai immediately knelt down and offered her his back. "If you are not up to the challenge, then I will take carrying you as a handicap for my student's sake."

"Gai-sensei!" Lee shouted excitedly.

"There's no way in hell I'm getting on your back."

"You would prefer bridal then?"

"No."

"Fireman?"

Samui gripped the bridge of her nose tightly. "I'm not going to let either of you carry me." She said sternly.

"The sun is going down! We are losing time. We can't afford to nitpick the details."

"We don't have to get there within the day!" Samui said with a slightly raised voice.

"But we do! Lee has challenged himself to break new barriers and to better his self through physical exertion. I couldn't be able to call myself his sensei if I discouraged such behavior."

Gai tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Hmmmm… then what do I do~? Oh! I know." Gai went through a couple handseals before slamming his hand on the ground. Sealing arrays spread outward from his palm and a large tortoise poofed into existence.

It looked around lethargically. "Here." Gai said.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Samui asked.

"This is a summon animal." Gai explained. "When we are safely within the Land of Water, I'll reverse summon it. You just have to sit on it until I do so."

Samui looked away from him to look the tortoise in the eye. "I don't think this is the greatest-" When she looked away from the tortoise, instead of finding her partner and his sensei, all she saw was two vaguely human shaped puffs of dust. There was a trail of dust leading all the way to the two shinobi racing towards the horizon.

What she wouldn't give to be on a team with anyone else. Samui hopped on the tortoise for now and waited.

… Whelp, now she was beached on a big tortoise with nothing to entertain herself with, while the two shinobi raced towards the Land of Water.

Just as she was thinking about getting off of it, the tortoise lethargically got up and began ambling around toward the direction of Konoha proper.

"This is so not cool."

00000000

Kurotsuchi glared at the last Uchiha. They were walking in the direction of the Village Hidden in the Stones in complete silence and one-sided hatred.

Nothing was said between the two, nothing happened between the two, nothing but Kurotsuchi glaring at the kid.

She didn't like him. That much was for sure. He acted like he had a stick up his ass, he had a superior tone of voice and countenance, and most importantly, he insulted her village.

It was an offhand remark, something about the quality of shinobi produced there. She doubted that he even knew that he did it. Kurotsuchi might have been able to get over it, but he was just such a prick that she couldn't think of doing anything other than hating him for it.

He was a prick to everyone, she knew that from their limited interaction in the forest. She also knew that there was something majorly wrong with him if he was willing to take a good grip on someone's head, stare at them in the eyes, and snap their neck after utterly terrifying them. It wasn't the death that threw her off of him, it was the fact that he was almost playing with his food that got her. Not to mention that weird shit that was on his skin, she didn't even know what to do with that.

So she continued to glare at him. Somewhere in the back of her head, she knew that it was petty to hate him as much as she did, but she didn't exactly care at the moment.

He had handsome features, a good physique, and a look that would have chicks swarming over him. Despite those things, she knew that she could never like him let alone be attracted to him because he was just so completely dull and stoic.

If only she could have gotten another teammate instead of him. Like that blonde kid. Sure, he might have pushed her into a trap, but that was a heck of a lot better than slitting her throat. He could also fight pretty well and knew medic ninjutsu. An all-around shinobi that any genin would cream their pants to get as their partner. But nope, she was stuck with stoic psychopants on a journey of several days and many glares.

No, this month was not going to be fun for her at all.

00000000

The veterinary was empty. The walls were clinically white, there were no other people sitting in the multitude of chairs, and the counter was alarmingly empty.

Naruto headed outside to double check the sign. Yup, it definitely read 'open'.

Inside, Naruto tried calling out. "Is anybody here?" But that only set off a round of assorted barks, yips, snarls, pitches, and hoots. Kashikoi struggled in Naruto's arms from the sudden wild animal noises. She was definitely one fearful little kit.

While getting the fox under control, Naruto checked out if there was anything wrong in the back. People don't just leave a store unlocked with the open sign up and not be inside it.

Sure enough, in the back he found a teenage girl lying down on a metal table fully asleep. She was about 17 to 20 if Naruto was guessing correctly and had the Inuzuka traits one would associate with them. There also didn't seem to be anything wrong with her. Fully clothed, recumbent position, a satisfied look on her face. Nothing to denote anything sinister.

Naruto poked her shoulder. "Hey, are you okay?"

The girl shifted a little in her sleep.

He jabbed harder. "Do you need help?"

The girl growled lowly, making Naruto less willing to continue to interrupt her sleep. Damn it, now how was he going to learn how to take care of a fox? It wasn't like there was a manual for that.

Just as he was thinking of ways to get into a library while smuggling in a fox, Kashikoi managed to wiggled from his grasp and land on the table that the Inuzuka girl was sleeping on. Naruto immediately grabbed the little fox, but by then it had yipped a few times directly in her face.

The girl suddenly sat upright and began doing things that would normally require a large portion of a brain to be dedicated to that task, grabbing small objects, mumbling to herself, walking, those kinds of things. Her eyes were halfway closed and she didn't seem aware of Naruto's presence, which worried him greatly since he was in full view of her.

"Are you okay?" Naruto repeated.

No response.

He grabbed her shoulder. "Do I need to get someone?" He asked fearfully.

She jolted a little bit, as if she was just waking. "Huh? What? The shots!" She started scrambling over the room in search of what he assumed would be shots. The girl continued to do this, with Naruto off to the side not wanting to interrupt her, until she had a sudden realization.

She stopped what she was doing and stared at the clock. 2:30. Afternoonish. She body relaxed and she sighed in relief, presumably from the look of the clock. "It's not night then. Wooh." She sat down in a chair next to her and slumped into it. Her eyes drooped and her body went ragdoll in it.

"Oi." Naruto exclaimed. The girl definitely looked like she needed some sleep, but now that she was awake he didn't want to lose her to the land of dreams so fast.

For the second time in five minutes, she jolted up from slumber. "Wha-? Who are you?"

"I'm Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto." He said unsurely. Kiba mentioned that his sister worked in the vet's place. Was this her? She seemed like the right age for it, but lacked the slit eyes that Kiba and his mom had.

She groaned a little bit and stretched herself out. "Why are you here?" She finally asked.

Naruto showed Kashikoi off a little bit. "I need help with my fox-"

"No," She interrupted. "Why are you in the back room? Only employees are allowed back here."

"There was no one else here and I kinda really need help with my fox-"

"Damn it." She whispered, interrupting him again. "There wasn't anybody here? A teenager with a snaggle tooth at the counter?"

Naruto shook his head.

She began rubbing the tired out of her eyes. "Kenko was supposed to be at the counter. He left again." She said mostly to herself. "Anyway, what's wrong with your fox? Injury or ailment?"

"Neither of those. Kiba said that you'd be here to tell me how to take care of my fox."

She looked at him a bit more severely. "Uzumaki Naruto… Ohhhh. You're the new member aren't you? Kiba was really happy that you're part of the clan. Probably had something to do with you saving his dog's life."

"Err, thanks. Anyway, the fox." Naruto said as he repositioned the fox in his arms to that she was more comfortable.

"Mmhmm, one second." She got up from the semi-comfortable chair with a little bit of difficulty.

"Are you okay?" Naruto asked. "You look like you need some sleep."

She laughed a little bit at that. "We got some exotic animals that need very specific shots at very specific points in time. We're offloading them in a week, but until that happens it's only Kenko and I working around the clock making sure that they get the right shots. Well, I'm here at least. I've no idea where Kenko is."

Naruto nodded. "Kiba said you were his sister…"

She held her hand out to be shaken. "Hello, I'm Inuzuka Hana." She paused to yawn widely. "It's nice to meet you."

Naruto shook the hand, but had to let go very quickly lest he accidently drop Kashikoi.

"You took a fox as your partner then? There aren't many members who use those."

"Are they less useful?"

"Well, they don't grow as big as the dogs do. They're usually given to the members who show an interest in supplementary shinobi work as opposed to front line missions. I guess that makes sense 'cause you're a medic nin."

"I'm not a medic nin." Naruto said. "I chose Kashikoi because I liked how she looked." The small fox yipped in agreement.

"You're not a medic nin? I saw the scar that Akamaru has, you saved his life where any other medic nin probably would have failed."

"I didn't do it using just medic ninjutsu. I mostly used my field medicine kit."

"Still, you have a talent for making sure people (and dogs) stay alive. If you aren't going for a medic nin license, you probably should at least consider it. Comes with some nice perks."

"Are you a medic nin?"

She nodded tiredly. "I also got a secondary veterinary license. It's really good. You get good pay, work is easy to find, the chance of death is just about the lowest out of all the disciplines."

"I'll consider it after I pass the chunin exams. But to do that, I need to learn how to work with Kashikoi here." Naruto patted the fox on the head affectionately.

She nodded. "There are some training books that we keep here for dog and fox training. I'll also get you some starter stuff. Where do you live?"

"West side of Konoha."

She bit the side of her cheek. "There aren't a lot of parks there. Foxes were domesticated in our clan later than our dogs were. They're still a little bit wilder than the dogs, so they have to have a lot of running room."

"So what do I do?"

"You could always stay here at your fiancée's house."

Naruto looked at her strangely. "I'm not… engaged."

"Your girlfriend then? Honorary clan status is usually only given to those in serious relationships."

Oh that's right, Kiba said something about honorary clan status being given to widen the gene pool. "Uhhh, my situation is a little different."

She stroked her chin in thought. "I guess that makes sense. It's kinda weird for a 12 year old to be in a serious relationship like that."

"13."

"How's your situation different anyway?"

"I'm not sure if I should say. Your mom should know, ask her."

"Fine, fine. If you don't want to tell me, then that's your business. If you don't have a place to stay in the compounds, then… I don't know. I'll have to ask my mom if there any available apartments." She walked out of the backroom and into the lounge area.

"Thanks." Hana began ruffling through the drawers beneath the register. Once she grabbed the correct books, she went back into the backroom and got a few bags of assorted goodies.

Taking Care of Foxes for Dummies.

House Training Your Cat.

House Training Your Dog.

How to Train Your Fox.

There was also a bag that contained a few animal bowls, some fox food, and some kitty litter. "Training foxes is a little different than training dogs. It's okay to either train them to piss in litter or in the outdoors. It's your decision."

Naruto set Kashikoi down on the counter before grabbing the things. He was overcapacity with the amount of stuff he was carrying, but with some smart positioning, he got Kashikoi to balance on the things in his arms. "Thanks for the help." He muttered out.

"One last thing." She said as seriously as she could with her very tired demeanor. "Kashikoi isn't your fox anymore. She's your partner, not a plaything. Treat her with respect."

"Okay." He said, flashing her his cheeky grin before exiting the veterinary office. He'd have to come by later. She seemed really overwhelmed with her work and could probably use a shadow clone to help her out with it.

After all, it was just one more shadow clone.

00000000

_Anko Mitarashi:_

_What (Anko) thinks about you: interesting, sincere, hard-working,_

_Anko has (little) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who like for who I am instead of what I am, men who can fight for themselves, men who are nice, men who are capable of forming their own opinions, men who are interesting._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

_Fu:_

_What (Fu) thinks about you: Understanding, fun, charming_

_Fu has (a medium amount of) romantic feelings for you. She is (fairly) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: People who understand me and what I've got through._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

_Tenten Higurashii:_

_What (Tenten) thinks about you: normal, funny, sincere_

_Tenten has (a medium amount of) romantic feelings for you. She is (particularly) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who can take care of themselves, men who are normal, men who are nice to me, men who are good for talking to._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: mostly unknown_

_Ino Yamanaka:_

_What (Ino) thinks about you: Kind of annoying, loud, brash, hardworking_

_Ino has (little) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who are secure about who they are, men who are cool, men who are nice to me, men who will listen to what I say_

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown_

_Anko Mitarashi:_

_Sakura Haruno:_

_What (Sakura) thinks about you: annoying, kind of weird._

_Sakura has (no) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who listen to me, men who are nice, men who enjoy the same things that I do, men who are strong and can take care of me, men who respect me._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown._

_Hinata Hyuuga:_

_What (Hinata) thinks about you: nice, supportive, determined, strong, hardworking, sincere._

_Hinata has (a large amount of) romantic feelings for you. She is (very) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: men who listen to what I have to say, men who are supportive, men who are strong, men who have fun, men who will always be by my side, men who are determined and hardworking._

_Base stats: unknown_

_Affinities: unknown._

Naruto looked at the stats in confusion. Tenten, Hinata, and Fu had larger than normal romantic interest in him and were interested in starting a relationship.

Fuck.

He liked Sakura, not them. Shit, he worked with Tenten in the forge often. She might be going away for the month, but when she came back it was going to be awkward for them. He didn't even know what to do about Fu. They were going to be training side by side for the next month. She was bunked in the same room as him for Christ sake. The same bed even.

How was he going to handle this? He didn't like them like that! Or at least he didn't think he did. And even if he did, there was two of them. One of them was bound to be hurt.

He needed to ask someone more knowledgeable on the subject than him. Anko wouldn't be his first choice, but at the moment he was devoid of anyone else that he could turn to on the subject.

The original and Fu were still training. Bursting now would probably upset something that was happening. The smartest thing to do would be to go back to the forge and dispel naturally. Let the original do all the hard thinking.

"Oi, Is something wrong?" One of the Cook! Naruto's asked him.

"Ehmmm. You'll find out when I dispel." The Forge! Naruto said in return.

"Did something happen?"

"You'll find out."

The Cook! Naruto looked like he wanted to ask in more detail, but was derailed when the door opened and Inuzuka! Naruto walked into the apartment. The sound of yipping assaulted their ears. "Guess who has handsome looks, a great personality, and a new foxy partner." He called out from the doorway.

"I don't care." Cook! Naruto said. He was slightly steamed as of late because he was having trouble perfecting the shrimp ramen recipe that he was put in charge of.

Inuzuka! Naruto brought over the fox to show the other clones after he set down the items that were taking up his arm space. "Meet Kashikoi, our new ninken partner." He said gleefully.

"A ninken?"

"It's an Inuzuka thing." He replied simply. Inuzuka! Naruto set the fox on the ground and let it explore the house a bit. "We also might be moving into the Inuzuka compounds in a little bit."

A collective groan was heard from the kitchen. "Why do we have to leave? Is that another Inuzuka thing?" Forge! Naruto asked.

"Nah, Kashikoi just needs to be able to run around some."

"Well this place is getting kind of cramped." Cook! Naruto said.

"Oh, and you guys will never guess what I saw on the way here." Inuzuka! Naruto said.

"What?"

"You know Samui? That Cloud chick"

"Of course we know her, we're you."

"Well anyway, she was just crouched on top of this giant turtle thing."

"…What?"

"Yeah, it was really weird. She looked pissed, so I didn't say anything, but it still looked really silly." Inuzuka! Naruto said to the clones before cracking up in laughter.

"Glad you're having such a great time." Cook! Naruto said sarcastically.

Kashikoi began running wildly around the apartment for no apparent reason. The sounds that she generated were loud enough to derail the conversation that the Narutos were having. "What's wrong with her?" Cook! Naruto asked.

"I don't know." Inuzuka! Naruto said. "Maybe she needs something?"

"Food?"

"Water?"

"Piss?"

Each of the three Narutos started to tear apart the bagging that Hana had given Inuzuka! Naruto for the things that they needed to set up for the fox. One filled up the food bowl, another filled up the water bowl, and the last one began setting up the kitty litter.

When all was said and done with, Kashikoi had stopped running around the apartment and stared at the three of them expectantly. It yipped once. A pop-up window came up in front of all of them. It expanded widely for all to see.

_(Kashikoi) wants to be in your party._

_You will have (one) spot left if you say yes_

_[Yes] [No]_

Silence filled the apartment. The only sounds were the ones coming from the kitchen where the other oblivious Cook! Narutos were working.

"What do we do?" Forge! Naruto asked.

Inuzuka! Naruto slowly brought his hand forward and hovered over the _[Yes]_ button. He looked back at the others to see if they would stop him, but nothing came. He pushed his hand forward and tapped the _[Yes]_ button.

The pop-up retracted. Kashikoi yipped again and began eating some food from the bowl.

The Narutos looked at each other. "What was that?" Cook! Naruto asked.

Forge! Naruto began flipping through the guidebook that still propagated his hand.

_Kashikoi:_

_What (Kashikoi) thinks about you: smells nice_

_Kashikoi has (no) romantic feelings for you. She is (not) interested in starting a relationship._

_Romantic interests: NA_

_Base stats: _

_Chakra: 10_

_Chakra control: 2_

_Wisdom: 5_

_Intelligence: 3_

_Charisma: 19_

_Flexibility: 30_

_Speed: 35_

_Strength: 7_

_Edurance: 20_

_Affinities: _

_Tracking 15/50_

_(Kashikoi) is a part of your party. She is cognizant of the fact that the game is going on and you may now recruit her for missions that you wish to embark upon._

By the time Forge! Naruto was done reading her new stats, the others were crowded around him.

"A party system?" Cook! Naruto asked.

"This is so cool." Inuzuka! Naruto said.

"We still have one slot left." Forge! Naruto added.

"Who should we add?"

"Anko?"

"Fu?"

"Sakura-chan?"

"Teme?"

"Kakashi-sensei?"

"No. We need someone smart."

"Someone like who?"

"Shikamaru?"

"Yes, Shikamaru. He's smart. He could probably figure this game out."

"Should we all go?" Cook! Naruto asked.

"No, I'll go." Forge! Naruto said. "I'm already out of my way on what I'm supposed to do."

Inuzuka! Naruto picked up one of the books on the table on fox training. "Well good luck then. I've got to figure out how to train a fox."

Cook! Naruto walked back to the kitchen with a slightly annoyed look on its face. This little diversion had been fun, but he really had to figure out how to get the shrimp ramen up to 50.

"I really hope this works." Forge! Naruto said as he walked out the door.

00000000

Karui glowered at the two shinobi in front of her. One was taller than the other and had more jagged features, while the second one was shorter and had more rounded features. These were Nara Shikamaru and Nara Shikaku and they were staring at a board of chess that they were kneeling in front of.

Neither of them had made one single move yet, but they were still staring at the board intensely. Probably the first and only time she could see her teammate with an intense look on his face would be when he was staring at a chess board in front of his father.

Shikamaru's hand hovered over his left white knight for several seconds before withdrawing it. Then he did the same for nearly all of the pawns on the board, wasting minutes of Karui's time. Minutes may not sound like much to get upset over, but she still didn't know why they were wasting it.

Karui growled lowly. She walked brusquely up to Shikamaru, sat down next to him, and moved the right white knight to a space in front of the pawns. "There." She hissed. "Your move, old man." She said to Shikaku.

Shikaku move one of his pawns two spaces in front of him with a smirk on his face. Shikamaru groaned into his palm. "Checkmate." Shikaku drawled out.

"What the fuck are you on, old man? We're nowhere near checkmate." Karui said belligerently.

"You lost the game for me." Shikamaru said exasperatedly. "In all the moves that would precede this, I would eventually lose after move 45. I would take his two knights, one of his bishops, two of his rooks, and five of his pawns. He would place me in check by putting my king in a corner and placing his queen, the bishop and one of his pawns there to stop its advance."

Karui looked at the boy incredulously. "What is wrong with this clan? Do you see the future or something?"

"We're just smart, unlike you." Shikamaru said.

"Now, now." Shikaku said. "There's no need to fight. If you two are going to advance in the tournament, then you're going to have to work together."

Karui huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't see how I'm going to be able to work with a treehugging leaf nin who doesn't know how to act."

"And I don't see how I'm going to work with an irascible airhead who only knows how to charge ahead."

"What the fuck does irascible mean?"

Shikamaru looked disinterestedly at her. "It means you're quick to anger."

She roughly grabbed the collar of his mesh shirt and brought him closer to her snarling face. "Say that again, treefucker. See what happens."

The shadows around the room coalesced into different strands that gripped the two and roughly pulled them apart. Shikaku was crouched down with his hands in the rat seal. "You two are either going to have to learn to work together, or you're going to fail in the first round."

Karui began struggling against the shadows fruitlessly. "What the actual fuck is wrong with your clan? You never do anything because you're too busy thinking, you're ridiculously smart and ridiculously lazy, and now you can make shadow tentacles. _Shadow tentacles_."

"They aren't tentacles." Shikaku said. "Tentacles assume a 3D space. These only assume a 2D one."

Just as Karui moaned out in annoyance and confusion, the door opened with two people in the doorway. One was the blonde kid who made it through the exams and the other was Shikamaru's mom, Yoshino Nara.

Naruto rubbed the back of his neck embarrassedly. "Am I interrupting something?"

Shikaku's shadow stitches pulled away and let them both have their movement back. "Not at all."

"Hey Naruto." Shikamaru greeted.

"Hey Shikamaru." Naruto looked around the room of people who had their eyes on him. It was probably for the best that he not tell everyone in the room who didn't need to know. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

Shikamaru looked to his dad, who sighed from vexation. "Go on, we could all use a break from training."

"This was training?" Karui asked incredulously.

Naruto and Shikamaru exited the room together and faced each other in the hall. "What's this about Naruto?"

"I need you to do me a favor."

Shikamaru gave him a strange look. Naruto almost never asked for favors, it just wasn't in his best interest to be indebted to other people. "Okay, what do you need?"

"Do you want to join my party?"

Shikamaru didn't particularly know what to say at this remark.

"Did anything happen?"

"Was something supposed to happen?"

Naruto stroked his non-existent beard in thought for several seconds. "…What did I do wrong? Oh wait, Kashikoi asked me. That's what set it off, not the other way around. Ask me to join my party." He ordered.

"Naruto, what's this about? Is something wrong man?"

"Just do it!"

Shikamaru sighed. "Can I… join your party?" When he said those words, something strange happened. A small square, one might call it a window, popped up in front of Naruto. Naruto exclaimed joyously and touched a part of the window. "What just happened?" Shikamaru asked, slightly freaked out.

"You're part of my party now!"

"What does that mean!?"

"…Don't you feel any different?"

"No, I-" Shikamaru's eyes widened. He could feel something wrong with his ninja pouch. He reached inside and felt something in there that wasn't supposed to be there. Something vaguely book-like.

The book was about the size of a small hand-guide. It was beige in color and had no title or anything else to denote what it would be used for. "What did you do?" Shikamaru asked. "What did you get me involved in?"

Naruto brought out his very own, very similar looking book. "Welcome to Naruto: the Game!"

Shikamaru cracked open the book and read the opening statement. "Troublesome."

00000000

Naruto (the original) had a bright blush on his cheeks. The reason for this would be the fact that he was currently only wearing a towel and was having his back scrubbed down by a gleeful Anko Mitarashi. Fu was washing herself on the stool next him, not doing anything to hide her modesty, thusly he averted his eyes downwards.

On one hand, Naruto kind of respected Fu for how open and carefree she was, on the other, she should probably wear a towel when washing herself in a mixed bath.

After the training that Anko put them through, the Mitarashi vouched for going to a mixed bath. Naruto and Fu were too tired at the time to resist that idea and the idea of a hot soak was actually really appealing to them.

Other than he, Anko, and Fu, there was one other person there. A tall blonde kunoichi that was soaking in the bath when the three made it to the bath. Naruto thought she looked familiar, but didn't know where to place the face.

"You two really don't know when to stop fighting do you?" Anko asked. "You were at it for hours."

Naruto did a kind of shrug. "I've got good stamina." He remarked simply.

"Well, yeah. Of course you do. But still, I never thought it extended that far." The fight between him and Fu had been rather one-sided. It was clear that Fu would come out the victor based solely on the fact that Naruto was never given the chance to go on the offensive. That being said, for much longer than Anko expected, he was able to fend her off with his bo staff and senbon.

After their little 'extended spar', Anko escorted them into the forest of death in order to put her own kind of training on them. Not much will be said about that training session other than the fact that it managed to tire them out to the point where they had trouble moving afterwards.

Anko truly was a psychopathic sadist.

"It was fun." Fu said with a smile on her face. "Well, not the stuff after the spar, but the spar itself was fun."

"Yeah, it was."

Anko looked at Naruto worriedly. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong."

"Then why do you look so sad?"

"I'm not sad."

"Then why are you staring at the floor all sad like."

Naruto looked up at her and promptly looked back at the ground with an intensified blush. "Maybe it's because you aren't wearing a towel." Naruto offered.

"But towels are for getting dry. I still want to soak in the water." Fu stated simply.

"That's not… the… point. Anko, you get why she's supposed to take a towel right?"

Anko lightly slapped Naruto on the back. "Oh come on you prude. It's only the human form, there's no need to be ashamed of anything."

"But… I'm not supposed to look at you when you're naked. It's not right." The orphanage that he stayed at had at the very least told him about how one wasn't supposed to look at another when they were naked. It just wasn't polite, after all.

Anko shrugged her shoulders, not that Naruto knew she did so. "Whatever, it's my turn anyway."

"What?"

Anko sat down at the stool next to Naruto and pointed to her back. "I wash your back, you wash mine."

She covered her front torso and crotch area with a towel, covering the sensitive bits. She might be a psychopathic sadist, but at least she respected Naruto's personal space.

He tentatively grabbed a washing towel and began scrubbing down her back. "I still don't get why you're so sensitive about all this stuff. You're a guy, isn't this like a dream to you? Plus, it's still just the human form."

"So does that make it okay to run out naked in the streets?" Naruto retorted.

"No, but I'm comfortable around you. So I don't mind it. Are you uncomfortable around me?"

"I just don't… want you to see me naked. It's weird."

"You'll get over that eventually." Anko said with a sense of finality.

"Okay!" Fu said excitedly. "Bath time!" After exerting her excitement over the prospect of soaking in the bath, she promptly jumped in the small pool. It was evening out and the sky was a pretty pink.

Fu groaned into the bath and sunk even deeper. The water truly did feel good on her sore muscles and training aches. "Is the water good?" Anko asked.

"So great!" Fu began floating on her back in the water. Due to the fact that there was only the blonde kunoichi in the water other than her, she had the space to play.

Anko abruptly got up from the stool and did a running jump into the pool, splashing water everywhere. The unnamed kunoichi looked annoyed, but didn't comment and risk an unneeded argument. Naruto got up as well and lowered himself into the bath. Normally he would be full of unbridled energy and jump into the pool with her, but was still not as open with his body as Anko or Fu were, which led to him carefully putting the towel to the side of the pool and sinking into it as fast as he could. The water was murky with minerals and other such things, meaning no one could see any sensitive bits under the water.

Naruto let out a sigh of relief. His muscles ached from the day of training and the water did feel really good. Naruto was what some would call hyperactive, meaning he normally didn't have the ability to just quietly soak in water and relax. He was a busy man, things to do, people to see, pranks to pull, things like that. But with the knowledge that the clones were taking care of all the things he needed taking care of at the moment, coupled with his increased exhaustion, he allowed himself to close his eyes and just let the water soothe his body.

"You're that kid."

Naruto looked up from his position of relaxation. It was the unnamed kunoichi who addressed him. "Do I… know you?" He asked.

"I'm Yugito Nii… We met in the sushi restaurant. You ratted me out to the Raikage."

Now that Naruto got a good look at her, he realized that this was true. She was the cloud jonin that he got Jinchuuriki points from telling Ai where she was. She looked really different with her hair down. Naruto rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Hehe, sorry about that."

She waved him off. "Don't worry about it. So you actually took the exams? I definitely thought you were going to die."

Naruto sweatdropped. "Thanks so much for that vote of confidence."

She shrugged dismissively. "Whatever. Is that your partner?" She asked, pointing to Fu, who was now in a splash fight with Anko.

Naruto nodded.

"Isn't she a little… loud, for bathing?"

"I guess. Sorry about that, she's an orphan who grew up in the woods, so she doesn't know much about social stuff."

Yugito quirked an eyebrow. "And I assume that the woman who followed you in is your sensei? Was she raised in the woods too?"

"Nah, she's just like that sometimes."

"I see."

Both she and Naruto were willing to let the conversation drop there, seeing as they didn't really know each other and wanted to go back to their own devices, but Naruto heard something strange that garnered his attention. It sounded like… scratching or something. Yugito apparently heard it as well because she got a far off look in her face and was looking around suspiciously.

"You hear that?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah, I do."

Anko and Fu swam over to where Naruto was in order to rope him in their innocent bathing games, but were immediately put on guard as they noticed the concentrated look on his face. "What's wrong?" Anko asked seriously.

"Can't you hear that?" Naruto asked.

"Hear what?" Fu asked.

"It's like… scratching. Yugito can hear it." Naruto said, pointing at the Cloud jonin.

"I have better senses than normal shinobi, so it makes sense that they wouldn't be able to hear it while I could."

"And who is she?" Anko asked Naruto.

"Oh, I'm sorry. This is Yugito Nii, jonin from Cloud. We met by accident at a sushi restaurant once." Naruto said, quickly introducing them.

"What's this scratchy sound?" Fu asked slightly worriedly.

"I don't know, it kinda sounds like… a pencil scribbling on paper."

Yugito got a serious and very scary look on her face. "You have got to be kidding me."

"What?" Naruto asked.

Yugito grabbed a towel that was near her and wrapped it around herself as she got up from the pool. Instead of making towards the door that led into the building, she aimed her body towards the walls that separated the hotsprings from the outside. A spout of blue flame erupted from her tailbone and shot towards a tree that was much taller than the walls. Evidently, it wrapped around a person, as when she pulled the tail of fire away from the tree, it was holding onto a very large man.

The tail threw him onto the floor with a thud. He had white locks of hair that fell all the way to his lower back and was dressed rather garishly. Other than that, he had a forehead protector that had the kanji for 'oil' on it.

"You fucking pervert." Yugito whispered dangerously.

Anko quickly connected a few dots and also got on her most dangerous expression. She hopped out of the water and took Naruto's towel to cover herself. Snakes slithered from her hands and wrapped around the struggling man. "You mind telling us why you were spying on us from a tree?" Anko asked in a feigned sweet tone.

Now normally, Jiraiya would be trying his best to get out of the situation by any means possible in order to get out of a beating. The fact that he was currently being held down by a Jinchuuriki from a nation from somewhere other than Konoha changed his expected demeanor slightly. "You mind telling me why I'm being held down by a Jinchuuriki?" he asked seriously.

"I'm with the Raikage." The tail tightened its hold on the man greatly. "I've got political immunity, now answer the question."

Things weren't looking so swell for Jiraiya at the moment. He made it a point to not peek on kunoichi, it's just dangerous business practice. But with all the foreign peoples coming and going as of late, he sometimes had trouble ascertaining whether someone had ninja training.

Jiraiya switched his tactic. "I was merely taking in the form of such beautiful creatures." Hopefully they would be willing to let him go based on the compliment that he gave them. The tactic normally never worked, but he was going 1 for 200, so it had to work sometimes.

Anko blushed, not from embarrassment, no she blushed from the sheer anger that she didn't know how to put properly into words. The snake's fangs unsheathed themselves from the snake's mouth and hovered dangerously close to the man's neck. "You fucking pedophile!" Anko pointed at Fu, who had sunken in the water up to her nose, dolefully looking up from the murky liquid. "She's fourteen!"

Jiraiya was quick to reiterate. "I wasn't looking at her! I'm into mature beauties."

Anko smiled sweetly. "Is that so? Because I'm into murdering perverted old geezers through the use of excessive poison." The fangs dug directly into his neck and injected him with a neurotoxin. Yugito's tail clamped onto him and threw him over the wall and onto the streets, where people shrieked in dismay.

Naruto looked dumbly at Anko. "Did you really kill him? Isn't that a bit too far?"

"I didn't kill him." Anko said disappointedly. "But that neurotoxin is really, really painful. I doubt he's going to be peeking on kunoichi any time soon."

"Wait, wait, wait." Fu said, standing up in the pool. "You're a Jinchuuriki?" She asked Yugito.

The Cloud jonin's fire tail shrunk back into her tailbone. "Yes." She said warily. Normally when people learned about her status as a Jinchuuriki, they were more withdrawn and tentative about the subject. This green-headed girl seemed absolutely ecstatic about it.

"We're Jinchuuriki too." She said, pointing to herself and Naruto.

Well this was certainly an unexpected situation. A meeting between beings, of which only nine exist, was abnormal enough not taking into account the fact that they were all naked doing so. "Really?"

"Yeah, I've got the Nanabi and he's got the Kyuubi."

Naruto waved from inside the pool.

"Can you train us?" Fu went on. "We don't know how to use our powers."

Yugito didn't really know how to answer. On one hand, she wasn't sure how the Raikage would react if she did train two very powerful weapons from different nations, but on the other, this new examinations concept between the villages was to support the unity between villages. Even if it didn't work out, Lighting was definitely going to try its hardest to work on the side of Fire. Training two potential allies didn't seem so bad. Then again, she had asked the Raikage previously for some off time in Konoha to experience all the things that Cloud didn't have that Leaf did. She had two weeks to spend on herself and wasn't too sure if she wanted to train two kids for the majority of it.

Fu grabbed a nearby towel and covered herself as she rose from the pool. She approached Yugito with puppy dog eyes and a pleading pout on her lips. "Please~"

A tic mark formed on Yugito's forehead. She never could resist that look in little kid's eyes. "Okay, okay. I'll train you."

While Yugito had been deliberating, Naruto had gotten out of the pool and grabbed a towel to cover his modesty. He and Fu slapped hands and gave great big shouts of joy.

They finally found someone to teach them how to control their respective bijuu powers.

00000000

Hayate looked at the night sky with a sad look on his face. Blood covered his face and torso from the huge lacerations on his chest and ribs. He didn't even know what was happening. He followed that silver haired Sound genin and listened in on his conversations. The genin met up with Orochimaru at some point and had a discussion with him. Hayate didn't even know what was said, he was too far away.

That didn't change Kabuto's willingness to nearly kill him and leave him for dead.

Hayate moved his neck incrementally to look at his chest. Blood was pouring from the wound in excess. He couldn't feel his arms, he couldn't feel his legs, he couldn't feel anything much.

Hayate laid his back and continued looking at the night sky. It was nearly a full moon out. He always loved the moon. It reminded him of Yugao.

Gekko Hayate closed his eyes for what would be a very long time. The one consolation that he had would be the fact that he closed those eyes thinking of Yugao, the love of his life.

**AN/ Read and Review.**

**Please note that nin dogs are not nin foxes.**

**On a side note, Temairine asked for my permission to take a few mechanics of my story and put it in a story of her own creation. It's a Game of Thrones fic and it's got a good start so far. I'm not sure if there's much crossover in the fanbase for Naruto and for GoT, but you do enjoy those two thingydos, then make sure to check it out.**

**The genin are exiting Konoha, Naruto has some new duds, Enter Kashikoi, Naruto's clone realizes that he has quite a few admirers, he and Fu have another sensei, Jiraiya's a pervert, and Hayate isn't having such a swell time.**

**Have a gentlemanly day.**


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